


Iron Queen: One Girl Revolution

by punkpixieprince



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 3490, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (Between Background Characters), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol Withdrawal, Canon Temporary Character Death, F/F, F/M, Gen, Heteronormativity, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Internalized Misogyny, Misogyny, Panic Attacks, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexism, Suicidal Thoughts, ciswoman!Tony Stark, gendered slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 05:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkpixieprince/pseuds/punkpixieprince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>According to her press, Toni Stark is a genius, a billionaire, a philanthropist, and a slut. But all she wants is to be a super hero, no matter how bad she is at it. (This is the story about how Toni Stark tries to save the world, but first she has to learn how to save herself.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron Queen: One Girl Revolution

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 [](http://marvel-bang.livejournal.com/profile)[**marvel-bang**](http://marvel-bang.livejournal.com/), this entire fic exists because in _Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #2_ , [the famous panel you probably all know about](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8vm6vMuyj1rycjquo1_500.jpg) claims that in a universe where Tony is a woman, her romantic entanglement with Steve Rogers stops the Marvel Civil War. So this fic is basically my argument that no, actually, if Tony Stark was a woman in love with Steve Rogers, it would go more like this. I do not recommend reading this fic for the romantic aspects, because it's pretty much a character analysis. A 25k character analysis. I do, however, recommend listening to [these](http://youtu.be/hd7mcV_fuPA) [songs](http://youtu.be/tohZgZEXJUY), as they were both very important parts of my Toni playlist while I was writing this. In fact, for awhile the working title was _confidence in insecurity_ , before I decided why be subtle when you can be really really unsubtle?
> 
> Because of the premise of this piece, I take Marvel comics canon and basically shit on it every five paragraphs. No, seriously. Technically, this isn't even set in Earth-3490, which is the basic premise. If you read the comics, prepare to become a squid of anger. And if you _don't_ read comics, while I tried to make the plot as clear as possible, it'll probably get a little confusing near the end. So. In conclusion: I’m really sorry that this sucks for pretty much everyone. (Especially if you're a Hank Pym fan. Do not read this if you are a Hank Pym fan. I live an 'I genuinely hate Hank Pym' life.)
> 
> This fic would straight up not exist if not for [Lila](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LilaKane/), who both beta'd this for me _and_ literally held my hand through parts of it when I felt like setting everything on fire and then hiding under my bed instead of finishing it. I'd also like to extend a thank you to my entire twitfeed, who have had to listen to me rant about this fic for literal months. You guys are darlings.
> 
> And last but definitely, definitely not least, [](http://hildestark.livejournal.com/profile)[**hildestark**](http://hildestark.livejournal.com/) created [this amazing art](http://hildestark.livejournal.com/1774.html) that just blows me away every time I look at it, so go comment on their work and send them a lot of love!!

When Toni Stark was six years old, she'd been kidnapped for the first time.

Later, when she told the story—or rather, when people like Fury brought it up, shoved it in her face to see how she'd react—she laughed, and said with a shrug, "It was only those idiots working for Republic Oil."

It had only been them. She'd been fine, they'd barely tied her up or hurt her, they'd grabbed her coming out of school and she was home the next day, it could've been worse, it had only been about money and her father's company.

After her father had paid the ransom, after she gone back home, and her mother had actually _been there_ for once, and Toni had cried and cried and her father had watched them, silent and staring; after all of that, Toni had gone to her room and gathered up all her skirts, throwing them into a pile and making Jarvis take them away.

"You're going to be alright, miss," he'd told her, but she hadn't responded because she knew, now, that adults lied. Jarvis had left wordlessly, a bundle of fabric in his arms.

***

When Toni was 15, she chose MIT. Her father only shrugged and said it was to be expected when she'd tested out of her classes. He was busy working on a contract the day she received her acceptance letter.

She declared an Engineering Major, and when she went home for break, her father told her to keep her options open, and that maybe she would consider something 'more suitable'.

"More suitable for what?" Toni snapped. "A woman?"

"You are not a woman yet," her father replied. "You're fifteen. Engineering is a difficult and often dangerous profession."

"What about taking over the company?" Toni asked. "I thought you'd be _happy_."

Her father just stared at her. "That remains to be decided."

"Oh, fuck you."

"Antonia! Language!"

"Whatever," Toni said. "I'm never going to be as good as _you_ , which you've made perfectly clear, I get it. Message received. I'm done here." She stormed out.

Toni refused to talk to him about school for three months. Eventually, they stop trying to talk to each other at all.

***

When she was 16, she got drunk for the first time, and some asshole tried to stick his hand down her pants.

That was when Toni learned, unconditionally, that being a billionaire heiress—despite also being a child genius and a brilliant engineer—meant she must obviously want sex and drugs and alcohol. It meant men leering at her constantly, assholes pretending as if they knew particle physics to impress her; or worse, douchebags pretending like she _didn't_ and trying to _explain_ it to her. Toni learned that, to the world she lived in, the world she'd been born in, she was just a pretty little plaything and nothing she could do would ever be good enough.

So she gave in, because what was the point of trying to prove them wrong? She did the drugs they expected her to take, and she drank the alcohol they expected her to drink. When she went home for the holidays her father just looked at her, always unfathomable, always silent, before he turned away. Toni went back to school and took another drink, and kissed another boy, kissed another _girl_ , and continued to work in the labs, the workshops. Despite everything, she still had that simple joy of making something just to see if it would work, and was always unaccountably proud when it did. Machines were the only thing keeping her alive, keeping her sane.

When she was still 16, she lost her virginity to some drunken frat boy at a party, and she added that to the list of things she was expected to do, expected to be.

When she was 17, she built her first AI.

When she was 19, she graduated.

The only person in the audience for her was Jarvis, and that was when Toni decided she really didn't need them, anyway. She didn't care about them, and they didn't care about her.

When she was 21, the plane crashed.

At the funeral, Jarvis touched her shoulder, but she moved away, not looking at him, and he said _ma'am_ instead of _miss_ and it hurt in an abstract, selfish way. She was angry, and she hurt, and she was angry that she hurt. She felt empty and surrounded by these people waxing rhetoric and asking about her memories and it was all bullshit and farce, sweet syrupy words and when Toni thought back, she was grateful that Obi had been the one to give the eulogy, because Toni couldn't have lied that well.

 _She_ was their proudest accomplishment. Ha. Nice one, Obi. A wonderful lie, a sugar-spun fairytale for this land of courtesy and public opinion and investors.

Toni went home that night, after the wake, so drunk she almost electrocuted herself twice as she pulled apart wires and fit pieces together, writing code and working on equations so she wouldn't have to think. So she could work herself so hard she'd pass out and she wouldn't have to dream.

It was a beginning, or maybe an end. It was Toni's life, and she fucking dealt with it. She relied on herself, and that was all she needed.

***

Toni hired Pepper within five seconds of meeting her. Pepper probably thought that was because Toni didn't care much about her or who she was and what she did. Really, it was because Toni could tell, within those five seconds, that this was a woman who could get shit done.

Toni occasionally regretted that assumption, if only because she had been so completely correct.

"Toni," Pepper once said, "Maybe, if you wanted the board to take you seriously, you should take yourself seriously first."

Toni had laughed. "What's there to take seriously, Pepper?" she'd asked, and she had only been half-joking.

Pepper did have a point, though. Taking over the company was almost impossible. Toni had two PhDs, but apparently the fact that she also had two boobs made her a completely ridiculous candidate to the board. Toni gritted her teeth and designed the best nuclear warhead she could come up with, because that was what would matter to them, continuing her father's legacy. As much as she hated being his shadow, she knew the best way to get through to them was to remind them that she was a genius engineer. Undeniably brilliant and irreplaceable, as much as the board liked to pretend otherwise. So if that was what she had to do, to prove herself, than she would.

Toni had done worse things to save herself.

***

When Toni's first official girlfriend made the press, 'lesbian' was added to her list of tabloid escapades, much to the board's chagrin and Toni's amusement. But Ru and Toni were alike in all the bad ways and different in too many of the good ones, and in the end it was Toni who dumped her, because even though Toni was a girl, she still _counted_.

Toni wasn't technically the lesbian the newspapers painted her, but at the same time, she _hated_ men. She hated the way they made her feel, she hated the constant need to prove herself when she was around them, and she hated their constant assumption that she was a drunk slutty rich white girl. She _was_ a drunk slutty rich white girl, so they weren't _wrong_ , but it itched incessantly, and filled Toni with a helpless and consuming rage because she'd never be good enough and she couldn't _do_ anything about it.

So she added lesbian to her list of attributes and sighed when Rhodey ranted about bisexual erasure, because she understood, but some things were losing battles, and Toni Stark was goddamn captain of the sinking ship Lost Cause.

***

Sometimes, she woke up, in the dead of the night, because she was six again, and she had tripped on her favourite skirt, the one with the kittens on it that her mother had given to her for her birthday, and there were bad people, and the bad people were grabbing her, and the bad people were taking her away, and she tried to scream and she _couldn't_.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" JARVIS would ask, and Toni always laughed bitterly, because otherwise she'd sob. She put her head on her knees and breathed and told herself that she was being an idiot. But the rage and the fear and the anger never went away.

"I will be, JARVIS," she promised, because she might not be six anymore but she still knew the truth, and the truth was, adults lied.

***

Her life continued, and she was holding on to the company with tooth and nail, fighting year after year as she built up her reputation for not being reliable in any way except that she was unreliable. Obi was the only one keeping her afloat sometimes, in the face of a board of disapproving old men who always reminded her too much of her father.

And then it came to her, and it was brilliant, and she excitedly explained it to Pepper, laughing and waving her arms, taunting Happy, rolling her eyes at Rhodey.

Jericho.

She was calling it Jericho.

***

The day of her second kidnapping started off relatively normally.

She woke up, and there was a pretty blonde in her bed, one who had _argued_ with her, and Toni respected that, even if she also disagreed with her and disliked her on principle. Toni did her best, and she hated it when people pointed out how much of a sham 'her best' really was.

Toni had an idea, a design, but she always had an idea, so it could wait, technically. But there was no reason to stay in bed, not for a pretty blonde who argued with her, because there was no merit in that, not at all. It made her feel raw and exposed and _wrong_.

She went downstairs, told JARVIS to blast the music, and got to work.

Pepper interrupted her, and that was normal too, and they argued, and talked over each other, and, oh, it was Pepper's birthday.

"Get yourself something from me," Toni said automatically, because Pepper had been working for Toni forever and it was tradition for her to be the mastermind for all the gifts Toni ever gave, even the ones she gave to Pepper.

"I already did," Pepper said with a smile, and Toni smiled back, because it was comfortable and close and okay, so maybe some people would be concerned that Toni's only friends were her secretary, her driver, her military liaison, and a computer styled after her butler; but fuck them, they were the only friends who put up with Toni's shit.

And Toni'd had to _build_ one of them.

"Was it nice? Did you like it?" Toni asked.

"Yes, actually, it was quite tasteful," Pepper replied seriously. "Thank you, Dr. Stark."

"You're welcome, Ms. Potts," Toni said.

***

Toni loved it when Rhodey was drunk. It was the only time in his life when he _actually relaxed_ , for one, and a drunken Rhodey ranting about the hotness of his husband and honour to his country was always hilariously adorable

Plus, it usually stopped him from giving Toni his speech about destructive behaviour and self-respect, which she was a fan of avoiding.

"Toni," he slurred, pointing his glass of wine at her, "you are… more than what you are," he said. "And you don't see it." Toni sighed. The key word was _usually_.

"Rhodey," she said, ignoring him as she stood up to get another drink, "you're drunk." 

" _You're_ drunk," he said. "But you're not a failure, or a floozy, or… whatever else they're saying about you these days."

"Slutty white trash rich girl who only has anything because of her parents?"

"You need to stop reading the tabloids," Rhodey said.

"I don't read the tabloids, Rhodey," Toni said. "I was just describing myself."

"Toni—"

"You know, you haven't talked about Conner much, this trip. How is he?"

"He's good, he sends his usual regards," Rhodey said. Toni rolled her eyes; Rhodey's husband hated her, mostly because she'd crashed their wedding blackout drunk, and his usual regards were a customary _fuck you, Stark_. "Toni—"

"I don't think the music is loud enough," Toni interrupted him. "Hey! Happy, turn up the music!"

***

The demonstration went perfectly. Toni couldn't help but grin when the explosion went off without a hitch. There was a certain amount of dark humour in blowing shit up, and the satisfaction of being in control of the situation always made her want to giggle manically. People would always be shitty to her, but her machines. Oh, her machines would always behave perfectly; always do exactly what she wanted.

The military men looked impressed, and Rhodey wasn't even trying to hide his grin.

She had them. She had them, and she'd done it all by herself.

When she raised her glass in triumph, she nodded at Rhodey.

Yeah. She was almost… happy.

It figured that this was when the shit hit the fan.

***

When she woke up, there was a battery in her chest, and the man who put it there told her his name was Yinsen.

She stared blankly at the dripping cave walls surrounding her, so far from her world it wasn't even funny, and listened to Yinsen explain that she was a dead woman walking.

She needed a drink, she thought wildly, and almost laughed bitterly at the thought.

"We've met?" she finally asked, when something Yinsen said caught her attention.

"I'm not surprised you don't remember. If I had been that drunk, I wouldn't have been able to stand, much less give a lecture on integrated circuits," he replied dryly, and Toni wanted to curl up, wanted to close her eyes and wake up somewhere else because this wasn't happening, it was just another bad dream, but it wasn't.

It wasn't, and this was real.

This was real, and they'd attacked her with _her own weapons_. She touched the wires coming out of her chest. Her weapons, the missiles she designed and built with her own hands, were being controlled by terrorists. She was going to die, because of her own machines.

She closed her eyes, and tightened her hands into fists to stop them from trembling.

***

"He wants you to build a missile—the Jericho missile," Yinsen said. Toni stared at her captors, and deep down, deep down in her bones, past the fear and the confusion, she _rebelled_.

"No," she said, looking directly at the men in front of her. "I refuse."

Yinsen looked terrified as they dragged her away, and her own fear threatened to surface, but the rage and the disgust was boiling over, keeping her alive, keeping her fighting, keeping her ironed-willed and strong and angry. So very, very angry.

They beat her, and she blacked out, and then there was water _everywhere_ , and she couldn't breathe, she was clutching the battery desperately and her chest _hurt_ , she was going to be electrocuted and _die_ , but she didn't, she didn't, though she desperately wished she had, because they dragged her outside, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, and showed her _her weapons_. She'd already known, but seeing them again, seeing so many of them, made her howl inside, pain and anger and fear and that constant impotency, _can't fix it can't fix it it's all your fault_. She stared at them, silently seething, and they said to build.

They said, "We'll get you the materials you'll need."

And even when she turned to Yinsen, even when they both agreed that they were never going to let her go, she was _thinking_. Because she was Toni Stark, and she had an idea, and these idiots had _her weapons_.

She could build a working AI drunk and blindfolded (she knew this for a fact, because she'd named it Dummy). Sober and in the desert, captured by terrorists but surrounded by her own inventions, well. It wasn't a _total_ loss.

Toni was thinking, and that always worked out worse for everyone else.

***

"They're gonna kill us no matter what," she told Yinsen later, after her initial burst of hope had worn off. "And either way, I'm still going to die in a week."

"Well," said Yinsen slowly, "then it's a pretty important week for you, isn't it?"

She looked at him. He stared back, smiling slightly, and she closed her eyes.

Right.

Right.

"I'm gonna need a soldering gun, and a workbench, at least two sets of precision tools, I'm gonna need grid paper for plans…"

***

"They're called the Ten Rings," Yinsen told her later, as she swiftly dismantled a warhead. _Her_ warhead. She'd designed this weapon, and weapons like it, and they were in the hands of terrorists. At this point she was pretty sure the anger was the only thing keeping her alive, since her heart wasn't really up to the job anymore.

She slowly dismantled the weapon she'd once excitedly engineered, pulling it to shreds, throwing away all the spare parts. It was almost cathartic (if any activity while being held captive by terrorists could be described as cathartic) to systematically tear down the things that had been ripped out of her control and used against her. Carefully, she extracted the palladium. She stared at it, her maybe-hope for salvation. She didn't glance at the video cameras, that would be too obvious, but she still allowed herself a smirk.

Yeah, these guys were _morons_.

***

Building the arc reactor took time, and it was exhausting and frustrating and excruciatingly slow, using spare parts and half-assed substitutes, and so she wasn't _super_ thrilled about sticking that thing in her chest, but it was either that or a couple of wires hooked up to a battery.

Plus, the arc reactor could power much more than just a human heart.

***

"You have a family, Yensin?" she asked, because she was stuck with him, and she was probably going to die, and he had saved her life, at least for a little while. She might as well get to know him a bit. She still didn't understand why he was on her side, why he was here in the first place, what his motives were.

"Yes," Yensin said simply, "and I will see them when I leave here. And you, Dr. Stark?"

Toni blinked at the question, because she was used to people already knowing everything about her and not bothering to ask. She stared down in front of her, at the sketches of the suit, the first pieces of her plan coming together. She thought about Pepper, who had probably gotten a much better job by now; of Rhodey, who had been in the attack, who might be dead because of her. She thought about Jarvis—the person, not the computer. She thought about her parents.

"No," she said softly. "No, I don't."

"So you are the woman who has everything," Yensin said, "and nothing."

She smiled bitterly, lowering her soldering helmet and not bothering to answer.

***

Building the armour without letting on what they were doing was tougher to pull off than creating her arc reactor, but the cameras had a blind spot, and Toni had always known her talent for sneaking around and fantastically cheating in the MIT labs (both on her assignments and with the other students) would be useful someday.

Even so, that didn't stop the Ten Rings assholes from getting suspicious.

Their leader came to investigate, and he was too close, in her space, and she couldn't move, and she couldn't fight, and the anger was still the fierce howling brunt of her emotions, but the fear was still there, still sharp and tangy on her tongue, and her fists tightened as he brushed his hand against the reactor, right between her breasts.

 _No_ , she thought.

"You have until tomorrow," was all he said, and then he left, and Toni closed her eyes.

She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to _think_.

Nothing had happened.

She was okay.

Another lie, because that's what she had to do to continue breathing. It had always worked in the past.

***

The armour was slow and bulky, but it _worked_.

It _worked_.

***

"Yensin," she said softly, crouching down next to him, cradling his hands as much as she could in the suit. She knew, even if she was ready to lie and tell him he was okay. "Yensin, come on, we need to go."

"No, Dr. Stark," Yensin said, gasping.

"Yes, Yensin," she said, "you're going to see your family, come on."

"My family is dead, Dr. Stark," Yensin said. "I'm going to see them now. I want this, Dr. Stark."

Toni sighed, and swallowed, because she understood, then, _exactly_ what Yensin's motives were.

"Thank you for saving me," she said softly. "I didn't deserve it."

"Yes you did," Yensin said, and he smiled. Toni tentatively smiled back, and then he was gone.

***

There was a dark joy in Toni's heart when she saw her captors in front of her, clinging to her weapons, shooting uselessly. She wanted to laugh as she shot back, the flamethrowers lighting up their entire camp.

When she lit the ignition, for a moment, as she rose up, she felt invincible. She felt _beautiful_ and _mighty_. She let out a whoop, and even as she crash landed, her armour flying into pieces around her, she was grinning.

 _Have iron in your backbone, Toni_ , her father once said, back when they had still been on speaking terms. She laughed hysterically as she tumbled into the sand, because despite everything between them, all of the things she'd never lived up to, that was a promise she could finally keep.

***

The first thing Rhodey said to her was a joke, a stupid, idiotic Rhodey-like joke, and Toni knew it was his way of saying _I love you_ and _Never do that to me again_. She just hugged him and breathed, not quite believing he was here.

"Next time," Rhodey said, hugging back just as tightly, "you ride with me, okay?"

Even as Toni rolled her eyes and smiled at him, feeling relieved and exhausted, she groaned internally, because Rhodey was gonna be protective as _hell_ from now on. 

Or, at least, he'd be protective as hell right up until she announced the fact that she was shutting down the weapons building portion of Stark Industries.

***

"They're saying you're hysterical," Pepper informed her.

"I'm not surprised," Toni said.

"They're saying you went crazy when you were captured."

"Wanting to not be responsible for the deaths of thousands of people is a reason for insanity now; that's reassuring."

"Toni, they want to kick you out of the company."

"They can't do that, it's _my company_."

"Do you actually know how your company works?" Pepper snapped. "It's run by a board of trustees, and the _board wants you gone_ , Toni."

"Sounds fun, here, hold this."

"Toni—" Pepper paused, staring at the thing Toni shoved in her hands. "Oh my gosh, Toni, is this the thing keeping you alive?"

"Yep. Well, sort of. That's the old, creepy, made-in-a-cave antique version of the thing that's _going_ to be keeping me alive, which is this," Toni showed her the new one, all clean and nice and shiny and not made of spare missile parts. Toni loved it, she really did. Clean, sterilised metal.

"That's… really nice, Toni, thanks for showing me, but—"

"Here, give me your hand," Toni said.

"What?"

"Your hand, literally, your hand, I need you to, uh, reach in, grab this wire, it'll be fine, just be careful, okay?"

"Oh my god, Toni," Pepper said, eyes wide. "I really don't think I'm qualified for this."

"Nonsense," Toni said. "You're the most capable, qualified person I've ever met." It was ridiculously true, actually, which was why Toni was loathe to let her do anything else that wasn't 'work for/be around Toni'. Especially since Toni couldn't really comprehend the fact that, despite leaving Pepper unemployed for three months, she'd still come back to work for Toni. Even though Toni knew Pepper could run Stark Industries—could run any company she wanted, really—ten times better than Toni could.

But she could preferably not also yank out the magnet that kept shrapnel from lodging itself into Toni's heart.

"Pepper!" Toni said, gasping, and she scrambled to attach the new one.

"Do not ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ask me to do something like that again," Pepper said, after Toni took a deep breath, adjusting to the new battery. 

"I won't, Pepper, I promise," she said, and it was only slightly insincere. _You deserve better than me_ , she didn't say, but she was pretty sure Pepper knew that, all the same.

"And put on a bra, or something," Pepper added, which made Toni roll her eyes. Her lab, her rules.

"Pepper?" Toni called when Pepper turned to leave, and Pepper sighed and turned back around.

"Yes, Dr. Stark?"

"I don't really have anyone, but you," she said quietly. She paused, and then she said, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Toni," Pepper said. "I love you too, okay?"

"Yeah," Toni replied. "Yeah."

"Will that be all, Dr. Stark?"

"That will be all, Ms. Potts."

***

Flying was like finally learning to breathe. Or well, not really. It was like taking a breath after holding it too long, after running a marathon, after swimming fifty laps in an Olympic-sized pool. It was relief, and life-affirming, and freeing.

Toni had always had freedom in her life—she wasn't going to deny that. She was a spoiled little rich kid, and she knew it. She'd been given plenty of leeway as a kid. She hadn't been tied down; had been given toys and allowed to create whatever the hell she wanted.

But there were different types of freedom, and different types of stifling cages, and when she flew, well.

It was a whole new start to her goddamn life.

And it was a wakeup call.

***

When she landed—with slightly less… panache then she'd been hoping for—she tugged off her helmet and grimaced when her hair (grown out and unkempt after three months) snagged on the metal.

"JARVIS."

"Yes, ma'am?" JARVIS responded promptly. "I assume you would like me to run the calculations on a stronger structure to solve the icing problem? And possibly call a plasterer?"

"Yes, of course," she said dismissively. "And make an appointment with Shelley. I need a haircut." She waved at her long curls. "These need to go."

"Of course, ma'am," JARVIS said.

"And JARVIS?" Toni said.

"…Yes, ma'am?"

"I did it, JARVIS," she said, tilting her head up and giggling. "I _flew_."

***

Pepper had left a package on her desk, which was odd, because Pepper only gave Toni presents on her birthday. And today wasn't her birthday. She was pretty sure, at least.

Toni unwrapped it carefully, and there, encased in glass, was the arc reactor Toni had told Pepper to throw away.

 _PROOF THAT TONI STARK HAS A HEART_.

Toni wondered if Pepper, and Rhodey, and Happy, were ever going to give up. She wondered if she'd be more relieved or hurt when they did. It was dumb to wonder, and it was also be dumb to care, if past experience was any indication, but Toni smiled anyway.

She left it on her desk.

***

Toni was working on an alloy that would solve the icing problem (or, well, JARVIS was working on it, but she created JARVIS, so it counted) when she saw that her _own_ party was going on without her.

"JARVIS, did we get an invitation for that?"

"My records show no indication of it."

Toni raised an eyebrow. It wasn't often she got to crash her own parties.

"JARVIS," she said. "Throw a little hotrod red in there."

She was out the door almost before JARVIS could finish his parting shot, something about her style preferences. Whatever, her armour was gonna look _awesome_.

***

Obadiah was there, and he looked all concerned and paternal, as usual, but he reassured her that he was calming the board down, which was nice. She could always count on Obi.

She slipped past, smiling at reporters and waving at crowds. She looked good in a pantsuit, and she knew it; someone asked about the hair, and Toni just smirked at them. They'd probably find a way for it to be a sign of trauma, or add it to the list of snarky comments regarding how butch she was, but Shelley had done wonders to it, and Toni could definitely pull off a pixie cut, no matter what the tabloids ended up saying.

She headed to the bar first, because it was her goddamn party, so of course she was gonna get drunk. There was some agent guy there, from that Strategic Homeland something something Toni didn't really care, and he was talking at her but Toni was a bit distracted because wow, Pepper looked _fantastic_ tonight.

She agreed to whatever the hell the agent said, which she would probably end up regretting, but it didn't matter because she had an excuse to head towards Pepper, Pepper who was wearing a form-fitting dress, and had her hair down. When Pepper smiled, Toni was pretty sure her heart stopped, which was worrying, considering all the problems Toni's heart had to begin with.

"I almost didn't recognise you," Toni said to her, pointedly not looking at her boobs. She'd been reliably informed about how that wasn't polite. By Pepper, actually. And Pepper's face was plenty captivating; her hair was _amazing_ , Toni wondered if Shelley'd had a hand it in. Pepper usually scheduled Toni's hair appointments, so it was possible.

"What are you doing here?" Pepper asked.

"Avoiding government agents," Toni said. "I love your dress." Just because Toni hated dresses and skirts didn't mean she couldn't appreciate them on other people.

"It was a birthday present. From you, actually."

"I have excellent taste," Toni said, and this time she might have given Pepper a deliberate once over, but really, no one should blame her. That much innuendo was impossible to pass up. "Wanna dance?"

"Oh," Pepper bit her lip. "No, no thank you."

"Come on," Toni said, reaching out an arm. "I insist." Pepper sighed, but she went with Toni.

"Am I making you uncomfortable? Is it 'cause of the lady thing?" Toni asked, breathing in Pepper's perfume. She smelled like lilacs and hairspray and her skin was smooth and soft and she was wonderful in every way. "I promise they'll just focus on me in the tabloids, and chatter about how much of a lesbian I am, you'll be fine."

"Oh no, I'm fine, your sexuality is fine, I just, you know, always forget to wear deodorant and dance with my boss in front of everyone we work with while wearing a dress with no back," Pepper said. Toni, astute as she was, was pretty sure that Pepper was maybe lying, and that she _was_ feeling a little uncomfortable.

"You look great, you smell great," she said reassuringly, "and I could fire you if that would take the edge off."

Pepper snorted. "You wouldn't be able to tie your shoes without me," she pointed out.

"I'd make it a week," Toni bluffed.

"Really?" Pepper said. "What's your social security number?"

"Uh," Toni said. "Five?"

"Five," Pepper said, rolling her eyes. "You're missing a couple of digits, there."

"I've got you for the other eight," Toni said, and it had never been more true. Toni needed Pepper, it was a fact of life. She tightened her arms around Pepper's back, and Pepper relaxed, just a bit, and it was overwhelmingly _nice_. Toni had never wanted to kiss anyone more than she wanted to kiss Pepper right then.

Pepper glanced down and away.

"Why don't we get some air," Toni said, and Pepper agreed hastily. Toni steered them to the balcony, and it was quieter and private and—

"That was totally weird," Pepper said.

"Was it because of the gay?" Toni asked.

"No, Toni, it's because you're my _boss_ , and—"

"It was just a dance—"

"It was not just a dance, you don't understand, because you're _you_ , and you don't have to care what others think, but everyone knows exactly who you are and how you are with girls, which is _completely fine_ , but then there's me, and it makes me look like I'm, trying to, you know, like I'm unprofessional and a floozy—"

"You're not a floozy, I think you're exaggerating a few key—"

"—And now we're here, and I'm in this ridiculous dress, and…" and Pepper trailed off, and she was staring at Toni's lips, and Toni wanted, she just wanted _so badly_ , and she leaned forward and—

"I would like a drink," Pepper said.

"Got it," Toni managed, pulling away reluctantly.

She was at the bar for three seconds before Christine (as she was pointedly reminded), the reporter and blonde woman she'd slept with before the kidnapping (she remembered that day so clearly, even if details like names had been lost in the shuffle), accosted her.

Oh, boy.

"You have a lot of nerve, showing up here," Christine said. Toni wondered if she was having a sexual identity crisis, or if she just hated Toni on principle. "Can I get a reaction from you?"

"Uh," Toni said. "Panic."

"I actually bought it, you know. Hook line and sinker. Is this what you call accountability?"

She shoved a picture in Toni's face, and Toni looked and wanted to gag. She could feel the heat beating down, the pain in her chest and lungs and arms as water rushed down her throat, because there, there in the desert were her weapons. And Jericho, the missile she'd tried so hard to keep out of their hands, was staring her in the face.

"When were these taken?" she asked quietly.

"Yesterday."

***

"Don't be naïve, Toni," Obi said, which hurt, because she'd always thought Obi respected her, treated her like an adult and not like a child or a silly girl.

And, as he threw his arm around her shoulder for a picture, he said, "Who do you think locked you out?"

Toni felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. She was frozen in place as Obi continued to talk, continued to bullshit. He walked away, and Toni still stood there, staring, re-evaluated her loyalties and what she knew to be true.

She thought she'd gotten over this. She thought she'd learned her lesson.

Apparently not.

***

"This is my fault," Toni whispered, watching the news. She'd always ignored it before; the only news she cared about was whatever the hell was in _The Economist_ , and the stock market index of her company. Sheltered white girl problems, a spiralling mess of alcoholism and brilliance that cared about nothing but herself, that was the goddamn definition of Toni Stark.

But that night she sat there, a drink in hand, and stared at her TV. _This was her fault_.

A little boy was crying, as a terrorist pointed _her_ weapons at him.

She clenched her hands.

***

The liberation of the village went surprisingly smoothly.

It was the trip back that got complicated.

"Rhodey!" she shouted desperately across the connection, grasping to the manned drone. "It's me, Rhodey, the unidentified bogey is me."

"What the hell, Toni? I thought you were done with weapons, if this is some sort of joke—"

"No Rhodey, you don't understand. It's _me_ , I'm in it, it's a suit, don't shoot," she said, as her grip slipped across the surface and she slid down, slamming into the wing, cursing.

She heard Rhodey suck in a breath, and she could just _imagined_ his pissed off, horrified face. It was a face she was very familiar with.

"Don't shoot it," he said, as she dived to rescue the pilot.

She smiled. For a second, she'd been so sure that the discontinuation of their business relationship… well. She'd been wrong.

"I could kiss you," she told him later, and he grimaced.

"Please don't," he replied. She waved a hand dismissively.

"How _is_ Conner, by the way?"

"He's great, he's wonderful, he sends his regards. You are a damn fool."

"Yeah," she said with a grin.

"So is this a new weapon?" he asked.

"No," she said firmly. "This is a new me. They had my weapons, Rhodey, they had _my_ weapons, and I am going to get them back."

"You're a civilian, Toni—"

"Yeah, well," Toni said, crossing her arms. "I'm a civilian with a genius level IQ and an extensive knowledge of military-grade weaponry. Plus, you know, super suit."

"That suit should be government property."

"It's not a weapon, Rhodey," she snapped. "I'm done with that. And besides, which one of us has a battery for a heart? That, you know, runs the suit? Oh yeah, that's right, that would be me."

"Is this the reason?" Rhodey asked, but it wasn't his normal exasperated and angry voice, it was his dangerously soft voice, the voice Toni knew actually meant business. "Is this why you won't have the surgery?"

Toni stiffened. Pepper must have ratted her out.

"You have no right—" she began.

"I have every right," he said furiously, "to be fucking concerned that my best friend has a _fucking battery in her chest_ , and refuses to have heart surgery! _Is this why_?" He grabbed her shoulders. "Toni. Please tell me you won't have the surgery because you… you want to go off on some misguided attempt—"

"It's not misguided! It's—you don't understand. It's my _life_ , now, Rhodey. It's what I have to do. I can't. I can't just… my life, my life has been this mockery of existence, you know that."

Rhodey closed his eyes. "Toni—"

"Don't even try, Rhodes," she said. "I've been a fucked up pathetic mess alternatively ignoring my problems, or using them as a crutch, for most of my life. And here we are." She waved her hand. "I literally faced my demons out there, Rhodey. And it's not just them I have to defeat. I have to… I need to do something fucking worthwhile with my pathetic life, okay?"

"Toni," Rhodey said softly. "You're not worthless."

Toni laughed bitterly. "Oh, Rhodey," she said softly. "That's exactly the problem. I'm worth so much—so much death. I'm America's greatest mass murderer, you know."

Rhodey closed his eyes, and, idly, Toni wondered if he'd just walk away and never speak to her again, finally done with her fuck ups and swirling mess that was her life. She wondered what she'd do without him, and resigned herself to building another suit, a better suit. A hundred suits. She didn't need Rhodey, if she had work.

"You really need to stop hanging around terrorists," Rhodey said finally. "They're bad for your health."

Toni grinned. Tacit acknowledgement was Rhodey for _I'll go along with your damn fool plan_. Which, in Toni's world, was more than enough.

"By the way," she said casually, "technically, the arc reactor doesn't need to be attached for me for the suit to work. But if you tell the Army that, I'll personally kill you myself."

***

Toni Stark was a smart woman. That was it, really, that Toni was so smart. Her entire life could be synthesised by the fact that she was goddamn intelligent, and she was ruthless. Her life hadn't had much room for trust, or sympathy.

Her company was selling her weapons to terrorists.

Obadiah had locked her out of her own company and tried to take her job. (Protection? Bullshit.)

"Pepper," Toni said, wheeling around in her chair to look at Pepper seriously. "I need you to go to my office, hack into the mainframe, and download all the shipping manifests for Stark Industries."

Pepper stared at her. "Excuse me?"

"I need you to take this," Toni repeated, holding up a flash drive, "and hack the mainframe. This will get you in; just look for executive files."

"…Why?"

"I need to see who's dealing under the table," Toni said. She needed to make sure. "I need… I need to find my weapons, and destroy them. Same as last time."

"Toni," Pepper said carefully, and Toni wasn't looking, wasn't paying attention. She needed to work on this stability booster. "You know that I would help you with anything. But you cannot do all of… all of this again," Pepper gestured around, at the suits and the robots. Dummy waved back cheerfully. "You have to stop this, Toni.

"This is it, Pepper," Toni said firmly. "No more art benefits, or parties, or sitting through snide meetings. No more trying to please people who will never think of me as anything more than a figurehead. There is the next mission, and nothing else."

Pepper looked at her, and there was the fear and the pity Toni had been dreading. She'd finally notice just how empty Toni had come back. Or maybe Toni had always been empty, and it scared her now that Toni had a purpose.

"Well, then, I quit."

Toni felt ice cold. "You stood by me, all these years, as I reaped the benefits of human destruction, and now, when I'm trying to fix my mistake, you're leaving?"

"You're going to get yourself killed."

"I shouldn't even be alive, Pepper," Toni said. "That has to mean something."

"Toni—"

"This is what I have to do," Toni interrupted her. "And I know in… in my heart, that it's right."

Pepper looked at her for a long moment, before sighing and taking the flash drive.

"You're all I have too, you know," she said quietly. She paused, and then added, "And one of these days you're going to ask and I'm going to say no. For real."

"I know," Toni said, because she did, she absolutely did. She didn't deserve even a tenth of Pepper's time, and they both knew it. "But not today."

"No," Pepper said softly, "not today."

***

Toni had nightmares about being attacked. She had nightmares about being tortured, again, of water everywhere. She dreamt of worse things, of the terrible possibilities that'd had her staying up for nights and nights at a time when she'd been a captive, keeping her on her guard until the last possible moment. She'd had Yensin swear to protect her at all costs when she finally did sleep, back then, but Yensin couldn't protect her in her dreams. He couldn't protect anyone ever again.

Toni hated being right, sometimes. She hated that thinking of the worst possibility was just considering the reality of the situation. And she _really_ hated being helpless. 

Obadiah was so goddamn _smug_ , too. She looked at him, the man who'd been to dinner with her family at least once a week, the man who had given her a Captain America action figure when she was six (a figure that was tucked away in some dusty corner of her lab, ever watchful). The man who'd had her kidnapped, stolen her weapons, and was currently, quite literally, ripping out her heart.

He leaned down, getting into her space and _pulling her reactor out of her chest_ , and she genuinely felt like she was going to throw up. She could smell dirt walls and urine and soldered metal, and there was a sour tang in her mouth, and a rush of water and she couldn't breathe—

Stane was talking, he mentioned her father, of course he did, but Toni wasn't listening, was gone, spiralling away, but then Stane made his biggest mistake. Through the haze of everything; the pain, the paralysis, the sick fear and anger, Toni heard him, clearly, casually, _threaten to kill Pepper_. No one threatened the life of Pepper Potts on her watch.

Stane was gone, and she couldn't move, but she _needed_ to move. Everything _hurt_ , radiating from her heart, and she was gasping, but every breath made it worse. JARVIS was talking, but Toni couldn't hear him. She couldn't think, but she _needed_ to think.

Pepper's gift, the old reactor, was in the lab. She dragged herself up, pulling herself to the elevator. She couldn't do this, not for herself, but she needed to do this. Pepper was in danger; everyone was in danger.

She dragged herself across the lab, but everything _hurt_. She was so exhausted, she'd stayed up for _weeks_ and never felt this exhausted, not even in grad school, and she could hear the pumping of her heart in her ears, as it stuttered and slowed.

She reached, desperately, for the arc reactor that seemed impossibly far.

 _She couldn't do it_. She breathed out, closing her eyes. She couldn't believe that after everything, after her survival, her fucking renewal, she was going to die here. She opened her eyes, looking up despairingly, because it was her own last moment, and she could plead with a God that didn't exist if she wanted to. 

And there, above her, was her beautiful, ridiculous, moronic Dummy, holding her reactor.

She smiled, and breathed in. "Good boy."

***

She attached the wires with trembling fingers, working on instinct and rote memory, because she could never truly forget how the battery keeping her alive functioned, how each circuit operated and kept her alive, the thrumming of the palladium as she handled what was, in effect, a tiny nuclear device, and, oh, that reminded her, she should really study the radiative effects in place, here. She connected the wires, and gasped, because this reactor was never meant to go back inside her body, but it was better than nothing.

She groaned, slumping over, still _so exhausted_. But then, suddenly, Rhodey was there.

Seriously, some day, she was going to kiss that man. His husband could suck her dick.

"Pepper," she said. "Where's Pepper?" Rhodey helped her up, wrapping his arms around her and staring at her worriedly.

"Pepper fine, she's with five government agents," Rhodey said, in his best Keep Calm, I Am An Authority voice. "They're going to arrest Obadiah."

Toni groaned. "That's not going to be enough," she said grimly.

***

Rhodey watched her put on the suit. She waggled her eyes at him, because even in times of horrible, crippling crisis, Toni couldn't help sexually harassing Rhodey. It was a very important part of their working relationship.

"That," Rhodey said, ignoring her, "is the coolest thing I've ever seen."

"I get that a lot," Toni replied.

"I want one," he said pointing at her.

"Next time," she said, as the helmet locked into place. "Promise."

***

Punching Obadiah in the face while he was wearing an iron suit was less satisfying than it would be otherwise, but it was something.

She ducked his lumbering swing; her armour was definitely hurting, especially with the Mark I reactor, but at least she could actually move. His design was horrible; really, Obi's little pet project was the prime example of why her father hadn't left the company to him. There was no ingenuity, no style; it was all brutish strength and no intelligence. It was, in effect, the antitheses of the Stark Industries way.

Terrible design aside, she was still seriously getting pummelled in this fight, and that lady with the minivan was not helping her any.

"Ma'am," JARVIS said, "it appears his suit can fly."

"Yeah," she said, before grinning slightly. "Let's go to maximum altitude."

"But, ma'am," JARVIS started.

"Trust me, JARVIS."

"Thirteen percent," JARVIS said, sounding like he was trying very hard not to panic. Toni was regretting her idea to give JARVIS synthesised emotional responses.

"Got it," Toni said.

"Eleven percent."

"Just put it on the screen and shut up, JARVIS," Toni snapped, and that was when Obadiah caught up with them.

"My suit is more advanced in every way!" Obadiah boasted.

"Really?" Toni said, as her screen blinked _nine percent_ at her. "How did you solve the icing problem?"

"Icing problem?" Obadiah asked, even as his suit started to fail. She grinned. She'd like to see him pull out of _that_.

***

Okay, so maybe he could pull out of that.

Toni was pretty much wearing a metal death tin, at this point, and there was no way to defeat this thing without something even more powerful.

Toni should've known that the person who would really save the day would be Virgina Potts.

Underestimating Pepper was a deadly mistake for anyone, and Toni really needed to stop doing that. Also stop taking her for granted. Toni was attempting to catalogue that and a couple of other mental notes concerning personal security and armour design, but she was having trouble with the whole concept of consciousness and movement, so perhaps it could wait. Frankly, she was surprised she was even still alive, but probably she shouldn't mention that. It would make Pepper cry, which was deadly in its own way.

Toni was still thinking of a way she could spin 'sitting directly in the path of a huge explosion' that didn't end in a lot of shrink appointments and the board ruling her mentally unfit, when she lost consciousness.

***

Toni opened the newspaper, shaking her head.

"Iron Man. Typical. Not only is it unoriginal, but it's also fucking sexist. I mean, it's not even accurate, it's a gold titanium alloy, and just because I opted for aerodynamics and not being an idiot when it came to basic mechanical structure doesn't make me a dude, it just means I paid attention in Engineering 101. Or, well, I didn't really, because I was sleeping with the TA and also it was Engineering 101, but you know what I mean."

Pepper sighed, continuing to help Toni with the make-up that hid her cuts and bruises. Toni would do it herself, except Pepper was being particularly hover-y today, and Toni let her, because, well, it reassured them both to be able to touch each other just to say, 'hello, I'm real, I'm alive'.

"It helps hide the truth," that suit, Clarkson? said. "Here's your alibi. You were on a yacht. You have statements from fifty guests. Just read it word for word." Toni flipped through the cards he handed Pepper, who handed them to her. She sighed, grimacing at the story she was about to feed the press. The story they would all believe, because she was Toni Stark, Billionaire Princess, Floozy, and Fuck-up.

"There's nothing in here about Stane," she said finally.

"It's being handled," the agent said, and wow, he—Coulson, Toni remembered now—was terrifying. Toni made a mental note to fuck with him as much as possible, in the future.

"You know," Toni said, "this isn't that bad. Even I don't believe I'm Iron Man."

"Well, you're not Iron Man," Pepper said, straightening Toni's sleeves. "You're Iron Woman."

Toni rolled her eyes, secretly pleased, before walking out into the line of fire. She cleared her throat, starting to read Coulson's cards, and, of course, a hand shot up. It was Christine, the woman Toni had slept with, the woman who pushed her, argued with her, and exposed the various crimes involving Toni's tech. The woman who hated her, and had caused her to leave Pepper waiting on the balcony for hours.

"Can you honestly expect us to believe that was a bodyguard in a suit who just conveniently appeared—"

"I know it might be confusing for you," Toni started, glaring at her, "but to make wild accusations that I'm a superhero—"

"I never said _anything_ about you being a superhero," Christine said. Toni stared at her, and Christine stared back, smug, and Toni couldn't deny it. Worse, Christine was right. Toni hated that she was right, that it was so unbelievable, that Toni Stark could never be Iron Man, not in a million years.

Toni ran a hand through her hair. "I mean, good. Yeah. That would be ridiculous. I'm just not the hero type. What with my laundry list of character defects, and all of the mistakes I've made, largely public." Rhodey was glaring at her, so she quietly shut up and looked at her cards, clearing her throat. "The truth is…" she trailed off.

She thought about her image. She thought about this one woman, sitting in front of her, who hated Toni for all of the same reasons Toni hated herself. She thought about what she was trying to do and how she was trying to do it. She thought about the _good_ she could do, finally.

She looked up, and then she looked directly at Christine.

"I am Iron Man," she said clearly, because she _was_ , and Rhodey facepalmed while Toni grinned, exultant, at the roaring mass of reporters. "Or, well, Iron Woman, really, guys, I can't put boobs on the suit, real life isn't a comic book."

People were shouting, asking her questions, and Christine hadn't moved. Toni grinned at her.

Because yeah, she _was_ a superhero.

***

The next couple years were a blur of dealing with assholes and crazy people, and Justin Hammer being his usual idiot corporate self. The government tried to take her suit; of course they did. They even tried to turn Rhodey on her, which was a low blow, but at least he was still mostly on her side, except for the times when he was a busy being a company man.

Toni promoted Pepper to CEO, and tried to kiss her on the roof, half-drunk from saving the world once again and not-dying for the second time. Pepper pulled away, and quietly told Toni that she was dating Happy.

Toni could deal with that. She could. She understood that her dependence on Pepper would not exactly make her an ideal girlfriend, and Pepper deserved the world. She deserved to be happy, or at least _fuck_ Happy, and when Toni had mentioned that, Pepper threatened to never speak to her again.

Toni gave Rhodey a suit, in the way she usually gave people things: like an asshole, and kind of in a way where she forces them to either keep or take it. But he deserved it, and she'd promised, and it kept the government mostly content and off her back.

Toni also accidentally employed a secretary who ended up being a spy for Fury's super-secret boy band, but mistakes happen.

Really, everything was fine and dandy and Toni was managing, keeping world peace and rebuilding her life. Atoning for her mistakes.

Then a crazy alien with daddy issues and a sibling complex started killing people and tried to start an intergalactic war.

Also, SHIELD found Captain America.

***

The aliens, Toni could deal with. SHIELD's super-secret boyband, which she seemed to be a part of depending on Fury's mood and the threat to global security, was much less enjoyable.

Dr. Banner, a man Toni respected (like Toni respected any scientist who called her 'Doctor' without being asked, and any person who was even more obvious about their personal demons than she was) would obviously rather be anywhere but there.

Thor was a _God_ , and, no matter how hot as he was, that messed with Toni's sense of self. He also seemed a touch too sympathetic of the insane murderous shenanigans that his crazy brother got up to.

Romanoff—not Rushman, as Toni had to remind herself—trusted no one, and on Toni's end, at least, the feeling was absolutely mutual.

And Captain America, well.

Toni knew a little something about Captain America. She'd _grown up_ knowing a little something about Captain America. She'd asked her father once, in her more petulant years (Toni ignored anyone who told her she was _still_ in her petulant years) that, if he'd loved his perfect war boyfriend so much, why had he ended up marrying her mother and having a kid?

Captain America had been a shadow looming over her in her childhood. He'd been a hero for Good, in a world that needed one, in a world where Good was more than a fantasy. Captain America was a fairytale that Toni had at times both loved and hated, for most of the same reasons.

Steve Rogers was a man in a suit who told Toni that she would never understand what it was like to make sacrifices.

 _The only person you fight for is yourself_.

It was true, and it hurt, because it was an echo of everything that Toni had ever told herself, an echo of Hammer and her father and every man who had ever looked at her and seen less and been right. All of that, rolled into one, and stamped with a hero's approval.

If Captain America said something about you, it must be true.

"Everything _special_ about you came out of a bottle," she snapped, because Steve Rogers was just a man, and Toni Stark had a very well-formed opinion of men.

***

The Avengers saved the day (against all odds) and could halfway work as a team, amazingly enough. Barton seemed a decent enough guy when he was on their side, and the Hulk was terrifying, but still managed to hit the bad guys. Mostly. While Toni still felt the echo of pain when she thought of Coulson ( _Phil, his name was Phil, and he'd had a cellist girlfriend, and now he was gone_ ), and New York was going to be under even more construction than usual for the next few, well, years, they'd done it.

She asked Banner to come back with her to Stark Tower (though she was considering renaming it), told him she'd give him his very own lab; his very own _set_ of labs.

He accepted her offer.

***

The Avengers went their separate ways, except for how they didn't.

At first, Avengers Tower was just Toni and Bruce, and that was… interesting.

Toni genuinely liked Bruce. He was self-deprecating, quiet, and fiercely intelligent. Toni knew what it was like to constantly spend your life fixing your mistakes and battling your inner monsters, and Bruce balanced his fear of himself with a genuine love and respect for science and the world. She respected that. Plus, Bruce's ever-present demons made Toni more comfortable around him. It was nice to know how messed someone was, upfront.

His second week living in her (still mostly under construction) Tower, she asked him out to dinner. He looked away, and very carefully and quietly turned her down. She sighed and nodded, but then smiled, punching his shoulder good-naturedly. 

"We'll have to settle for being the best of friends in the multiverse," she said.

"I'm sure Lieutenant Rhodes will appreciate that."

"Rhodey can just suck it," Toni said, waving a hand. "His husband hates me, he's a terrible best friend."

Bruce just smiled, but Toni knew he was super grateful and pleased, as he should be. Being her friend only ever had perks, like being constantly put in mortal danger and having to deal with her mental breakdowns.

Toni spent a large amount of her time in Bruce's lab, lounging on the ledge near the radiator and babbling on as he carefully and delicately calibrated his spectrometers or studied his resulting data. Toni didn't allow nuclear reactors in her Tower (it was the principal of the thing; technically nuclear physics was The Enemy of arc reactor technology, with Bruce as the outstanding exception), but Bruce found plenty of other work, and Toni found plenty to talk about.

Bruce made a good best friend, smiling at her jokes and relaxing around her, and Toni hadn't ever made friends with someone who didn't work for her at some point. Even with Rhodey, there was a working relationship and a certain amount of quid pro quo. She supposed, for Bruce, it was the lab, and the promise to obstruct any attempts Ross made on Bruce's life or wellbeing. Toni knew how those things worked, how the conditions of love and friendship were cut.

Even so, Bruce was amazing, and he had a very dry and quiet sense of humour, which delighted Toni, especially when Bruce was sarcastic and cutting around Fury. Toni loved people who were sarcastic and cutting around Fury, it was how she eventually became friends with Barton.

That was the thing; with most of the Avengers living in the same city, even if that city was New York, Toni couldn't entirely ignore them. It was Barton, first, who decided to invade their space and call Avengers Tower home; he _was_ an Avenger, after all, he argued, and this was a much nicer pad than SHIELD-issue barracks.

Toni said nothing about the apartment his records said he rented. She remembered what Bruce had told her, on the six-month anniversary of Coulson's death, about Coulson being Barton's medical proxy. About Coulson's own previous residence, the same address as Barton's. She said nothing, and gave him a room high up, near the roof.

Following in Clint's wake was Natasha, and Toni didn't really know how she felt about that.

For her part, it was clear Natasha understood this.

For Toni's part, she invited Natasha out onto her balcony for a drink. Natasha hesitated, but eventually followed her to perch carefully in the chair next to Toni's, both of them facing out beyond the railing. The city sparkled beneath them in the twilight, the sun sinking below the Hudson. Toni could see the Empire State building to the south; it was why she'd picked this view in the first place.

"There's red in my ledger," Natasha said finally, accepting Toni's offer of scotch. Toni nodded.

"Join the club," she said, and Natasha laughed bitterly.

"You think you know death, Dr. Stark? What it's like to have your own… _weapons_ used against your will?" she asked. "You barely understand the concept." Toni, turned, staring straight at Natasha. She'd read her files. 

"I used to hate you," she said finally.

Natasha flashed her a grin. "And?" she asked.

"I don't anymore," Toni said, "but I don't take betrayal well."

"It was an op. It wasn't personal."

"Yeah, well. I don't appreciate it when people I work with turn out to be someone else, someone working against me." She also didn't appreciate literally being stabbed in the back. Or, well, in the back of her neck. Same difference.

"I wasn't working against you, Toni."

Toni snorted. "Because Fury is always on our side."

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "You said 'our'," she pointed out.

Toni shrugged. "I guess I did."

Toni didn't touch her drink.

***

The Avengers had gone on their next mission before Rogers and Thor decided to join them in the Tower.

It had been against AIM, and, God, apparently that was also Toni's fault, what was it with people Toni had never met blaming her for everything? Killian's whole deal stank of Nice Guy Syndrome, and the way he'd treated Pepper definitely put him on the Asshole Scientist list, right up there with Hammer and Pym.

The leading scientific community really sucked when one of the only dudes in it that she could stand turned into a green rage monster half of the time.

Regardless, AIM had created some giant mutant brain guy with a stupid acronym, and Fury had sent them all out. They only _kind of_ destroyed New York this time, and really only the harbour a little bit, so Toni counted it as a success. As far as missions went it was fairly mundane; the only real importance of it was that the Avengers were now a clear team, here to stay. Also, they now had an official chain of command. To Toni's chagrin (but no one's surprise), Fury had made Rogers team leader.

"He has experience," Fury had said. "Also, I like him a lot more than the rest of you."

"Uh," Rogers had spoken up, "thanks, sir?"

Toni had sighed. She wasn't cut out for this whole team thing. She wished she could complain to Rhodey about it, but Rhodey _liked_ Rogers. Damn military and Rhodey's stupid childhood crush, blinding Rhodey to true friendship _again_. It was almost as bad as when she complained about how much Rhodey's husband hated Toni.

***

Thor's arrival at the Tower was announced by a clap of thunder and a booming voice announcing that, "Mortals, I have come to Midgard permanently to better protect the people under my protection."

Which Toni interpreted as 'Daddy finally kicked me out', or possibly 'I really want to fuck Jane more often', but either way, she led him to an empty suite and made him promise to keep from breaking as much shit as possible. She'd just gotten her Tower all shiny again.

Rogers was… less easy to manage.

The day Rogers officially moved in, Toni was not in a good mood. She was having a problem with her new armour, the Mark IX, and she needed a drink. She needed a drink really very badly, because she couldn't work on her armour and because Steve Rogers was in her living room.

She couldn't have a drink. It pissed her off.

So when Rogers walked in while she was in the rec room, jittery and worked up and punching the shit out of the nearest bag, she probably shouldn't have accepted his offer of a sparring match.

It went well for the first twenty minutes, until Toni noticed he was pulling his punches.

"Rodgers, will you stop treating me like a goddamn girl?"

Rogers paused, confused. To her annoyance, he was only slightly out of breath.

"I'm," he said, before stopping, shaking his head. "You're fragile. Especially out of the armour like this."

"Fuck _you_ ," Toni said, because she was _so done with that shit_ , "armour or not, I am not fucking _fragile_. I am a scientist, and an engineer, and a _fucking genius_ , and, yeah, you know what? I'm a superhero. Treat me like any of those things—but never, under any circumstances, treat me like I need you to hold my hand. Do you understand me?"

"You don't understand," Steve said, hands open and leaning forward, and Toni wasn't going to listen to his bullshit excuses, she was going to punch him so hard that he'd see who was fucking pulling punches. She might even punch him later, while she was in the suit, just for good measure.

"No, _you_ don't understand. You look at me, and you see nothing, but I am _not_ nothing, do you hear me, Rogers? I am a big goddamn hero. I saved the fucking day. I've saved it before and I'll save it again and suit or not I am _Toni Stark_ , and I don't care what you think because I don't _have_ to. I deal with sexist bullshit from investors, I deal with snide remarks about my unreliability from the board, I deal with overprotection from _Rhodey_ , because Rhodey's afraid of me getting kidnapped—again—but I will not deal with any of that from my own fucking team leader, do you understand _now_?"

And then she stormed away without waiting for a response, tearing off her gloves and trembling. She really, really, _really_ hated being sober.

***

Predictably, Rogers knocked on her door an hour later.

Toni sighed, and opened it, leaning against the frame. She was drinking her bazillionth cup of coffee that day; sue her.

"I'm sorry," he said. Toni snorted, and shook her head.

"Look Rodgers, I'm, uh, working on a project. An important project, with a very important subject, and you are invading. Interrupting. Unwelcome."

"I'm getting that," Rogers said. "I wanted to say… I didn't mean you were fragile because you were a girl, I meant. You're human."

"Congrats, you've passed biology," Toni said, bored.

"No, I mean," Rogers ran his hand through his perfect hair, mussing it up a bit. Toni, offhand, thought it looked a bit nicer like that. She wondered if anyone had ever mussed up his hair before. She smirked internally. Probably not. "I hold back, because you're not… you're not, uh. You're a person, an ordinary… not ordinary! A, uh. A dame, but not _because_ you're a dame, uh—"

"I'm not juiced up, you mean," Toni said, interrupting Rogers from chewing off his own foot.

"…Yeah," Rogers said awkwardly. Toni rolled her eyes, itching uncomfortably at the hand holding her coffee mug. Okay, so maybe she'd jumped to a few unnecessary conclusions.

"Look, Rogers," she said, not looking at him. "You don't like me, and I don't like you." Rogers shuffled slightly, but didn't deny it. "We work together. You live in the Tower. It's fine. It's whatever. Enjoy your stay."

Rogers grabbed her door as she made to shut it.

"I don't want you to feel uncomfortable in your own home," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "It's your home, too," she pointed out. "We'll both just have to deal."

***

All and all, living with The Avengers wasn't entirely horrible. The whole team dynamic worked easier if they were already mostly assembled when the call came in, and despite everything, Toni knew she could trust her team. They were all unfathomable and neurotic in their own weird and specific ways, and they usually couldn't all be in a room for more than an hour before something broke (it was almost always Thor's fault, okay, and _not_ Toni's), but when it came down to it—when it was important—Toni trusted them. They had her back, and she had theirs, and sometimes, Toni even liked them.

Bruce was the only one who knew about her nightmares, about her own lows. He only nodded slowly, looking up occasionally, and he didn't say anything, but she felt better anyway. It was nice to not feel judged, to not have to deal with the worry or concern of Pepper or Rhodey or Happy. Bruce understood, and he didn't try to fix her. The novelty of that was it's own kind of balm. 

Thor was crazy and laid-back and sweet, and he called Toni a warrior woman and a lady, two things that were rarely used to describe Toni Stark. He was hard not to like, even if he was a Norse-God-slash-Prince who looked like a ridiculous caricature of a bodybuilder, and even though she had to fight with him for use of her _own_ coffeemaker half of the time. (Coffee was a thing for Toni, now. Or, well, more of a thing. A Thing. It was important, and once Toni stayed up until 4am looking up terrible coffee facts and regaling Pepper with them at odd moments during insufferable board meetings. Toni was particularly enthralled by that ridiculously expensive coffee from Indonesia. Pepper was particularly horrified.) 

Clint was a snarky asshole who covered himself in scraps of kevlar and fought with a goddamn medieval ( _paleolithic_ , he'd told her once, and she'd rolled her eyes because what _ever_ ) weapon and called it a day. Because he was fucking insane. Toni couldn't help but respect that, and she made Clint crazier and crazier arrows, upgraded his shit to something slightly more modern, just to see him grin and do things that were all kinds of illegal and impossible. 

Toni and Natasha had an understanding. It was still tense between them, but they had a routine now. Once a night every week, if they weren't busy beating up bad guys, they met on Toni's balcony to watch the sunset out over New York City. They didn't really talk to each other, and Toni often worked on schematics for one thing or another, but still. They shared the same space, even if neither of them had much to say, and it was… peaceful. Toni knew it was Natasha's way of saying _you can trust me_. And it was Toni's way of saying _I forgive you_.

Toni once broke the silence to ask about Natasha's name.

"Isn't it supposed to be Romanov?" She over-pronounced the v, and Natasha smiled sharply. It was not a nice smile, but Toni didn't flinch.

"Not quite," she said, and Toni raised an eyebrow. "Americans don't understand the importance of names in Russia. Always messing up, using the wrong kind." She sighed, quiet for a long time. Toni waited.

"Natalia Romanova died a long time ago," she said finally. "My name is Natasha."

"Romanoff?"

"Romanoff."

"Cool." Toni paused. "I can have you killed if you call me Antonia, it was in your contract."

"I no longer work for you, Dr. Stark," Natasha said, but she was smiling, and it was a normal smile this time.

"Details."

After that, Toni didn't worry about Natasha at all. 

Captain America was, well. He was a hero. He was _Captain America_ , and Toni had seen the war footage, same as everyone else. He was larger than life, a symbol for the people, a legend come back from the dead to save the world when it most needed saving. 

When they were on the field, Iron Woman and Captain America got along seamlessly. They partnered up, fought the evil that was ever larger, that no one person could withstand alone. They understood one another, and were an unbeatable duo within the team dynamic.

Toni Stark and Steve Rogers, on the other hand, were still on rough ground. But they dealt with it, were dealing with it, and Toni was very successful about avoiding him outside of battle. That was the advantage of owning a Tower and not, say, a house. Or a mansion. 

It was a headache, and Toni wished she could do more than hide and create robots and armours but, well, she couldn't.

***

Staying sober was horrible, and full of temptation, and every day was its own kind of war. Toni didn't understand why people did this, why they went through life without the protective haze of booze. Everything was harsh reality, everything was a responsibility and a decision she couldn't blame on anyone but herself.

Her personal demons were magnified, every mission, every fight. The screams of children, the sensation of falling down and down and down, the coldness of space seeping through her suit, water in her lungs, palladium in her veins.

There was no escape, not in her dreams, not in booze, not on the battlefield. She woke up in the middle of the night, a scream on her lips, and JARVIS calmly told her that her coffee was ready.

She'd finally programmed him to stop asking if she was alright.

***

Maya had the solution to Toni's problem. Maya told her it wasn't a solution, that it was a death sentence, but it didn't matter.

She was dying anyway. Literally, again, though this time it was more of a simple _internal bleeding from being crushed underneath a car thrown by a man enhanced by a knock-off super-soldier serum_. Really, Toni had to stop doing this whole dying once a year thing. It was starting to get old.

"You're insane," Maya whispered. Her experiment had gone awry, she'd made a stupid mistake, trusted a man she shouldn't have, and Toni understood that. It was just that her mistake was costing lives. Was costing Toni her life, and it was time to fight fire with fire. Perhaps literally.

"I'm dying," Toni said through gritted teeth. "Again. My suit isn't fast enough, isn't strong enough. _I'm_ not strong enough. I need Extremis, I need a way to directly link to the armour, to make the next upgrades. I've run the math. I _am_ Iron Woman," Toni reached up to grab Maya's arm. "And I need this, Maya."

 _It's like the super soldier serum_ , Sal had said. _A Hieronymus machine._

Toni had an iron will and a desperate need. She had enough.

"I can't guarantee that it'll work, Toni," Maya said, and she was still so beautiful, so concerned for Toni after all these years. It was mind-boggling.

"Well, if it doesn't, I won't be around to complain about it," Toni said, and Maya glared at her. "And if it does, well, I've always wanted to google shit with my brain."

"If I've gotten one thing wrong," Maya started, but Toni laughed, huffing even though it hurt, and there was blood gushing out of her mouth.

"Maya, I know you," she said softly. "You're brilliant. You're smarter than me. Me? I'm just a girl in a suit of armour. The suit and I are one; take it off, I'm nothing."

"That's not true."

"Yeah it is."

"We can still call the Avengers," Maya said, even as she started to hook Toni up.

"No," Toni said, gritting her teeth, tasting blood in her mouth and grimly keeping the panic at bay. "This is my fight to finish." 

"You should at least _tell_ them—"

"This is what I do. This is what I have; all I have. Shaping the future to make up for the past, stopping people who want to take away that future. All I've got is an iron suit; all I've wanted is to be more than that." And that was the last thing she remembered.

The next thing she knew, she could control the armour, inside and out. She was faster, stronger, and she could use satellites to see. 

She _was_ the armour. She was Iron Woman.

 _Not so ordinary anymore, am I Rogers_ , she thought.

***

It was a month after Extremis, after the fight where she'd killed that man and found out about Maya's deception, before Rogers finally cornered her in her workshop, in the bowels of Avengers Tower.

"You and I got off on the wrong start," Rogers said, before blinking. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but that does not, uh. Seem like lab appropriate attire." He turned a bit pink.

Toni was made acutely aware of how she was wearing a pair of boxers and a torn up Metallica t-shirt, through which a person could clearly see her boobs. And the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra. 

"God, you sound like Pepper," Toni said, flipping up her mask as she rolled her eyes and turned off the soldering gun. "Also, are you looking at my boobs, Captain?"

"No," Steve said, flushing. Toni grinned. She liked making the 90-year old virgin blush when she talked about sex, which probably made her a bad person. Worse person. Whatever.

"So," Toni said, crossing her arms in a way she knew accentuated her chest. "Wrong start? Try a difference in opinion."

"Sometimes," Rogers agreed, sitting awkwardly on the dilapidated couch in the corner. Butterfingers came over and nudged him curiously. Toni smirked. The good Captain was pretty cute, awkwardly petting her robots. Objectively speaking.

"We argue constantly," Toni said. "You're a soldier. I'm not."

"Your best friend is a soldier," Rogers said, and when Toni raised her eyebrow, he shrugged. "I pay attention. He talks very highly of you."

"Well, he should, because I'm awesome."

Rogers smiled slightly, before giving her his Serious Leader Look. "Toni, what happened with Extremis—"

"Is my problem, and currently irrelevant. I saved the day—didn't need your help, I'd like to add—and got a few upgrades. If you're gonna be jealous about it, go complain somewhere else."

Rogers snorted. "You know, that front you put up? It's very good, very convincing. Get everyone to think you're shallow and thoughtless, get them to underestimate you, and then you take them down. I had a friend who would have loved you."

"Peggy Carter?" Toni asked, looking away. "Yeah, I knew her."

There was a pause. "You knew Peggy?"

"Dad used to have her over for dinner. Talk about when they worked together. She was a great lady, gave me a whole speech once about never letting anyone tell me it was a man's world. I don't think she liked my dad, much, but she and my mother got along well enough. She came to the funeral, at least."

"She was... a good friend," Rogers said. "And… she was a soldier, and maybe that's… I have trouble, talkin' to people—to dames, sometimes, and I mess up. The only ladies I really knew were soldiers and the dancers on the circuit, and those women were their own brand of strong and fearless. So I guess I just… you're a woman very much from the future, Toni, and I don't really know what to say to you, sometimes. But I want us to be friends. And I want you to know that… no matter how tough of a front you put up, I know you're a good person, underneath. You're not the person you pretend to be."

Toni wanted to laugh. He wanted to know who she was? Fine.

"You make me uncomfortable," Toni said flatly, because she might as well. "You are a… you're a ghost, of my father, and of a time that no longer exists. You're a national icon, and you _believe_ in America. And I don't. No matter what you think, Rogers, I'm _not_ a good person. I've seen the atrocities of this country, and what it does in a war. I've funded those wars. People like me, like my father, we aren't friends to people like you."

"I've also seen war, Toni. You might be surprised about the kinds of friends a _person like me_ has," Rogers said.

"Yeah?" she said, uncrossing her arms to lean towards him across her workbench, knowing exactly what it did to her boobs. "You know I'm bi, right? Like, into both dudes and ladies?"

Rogers blushed furiously, and Toni didn't know if it was because of her sexuality or because he was absolutely trying not to look down her shirt. Probably both.

"O-oh, really?" he said, practically looking at the ceiling. "Clint said you were a… I don't remember the word, but it meant you only liked dames. Girls. He and Natasha, uh, talked to me about it. Said it wasn't illegal anymore."

Toni blinked, caught off-guard. Black Widow and Hawkeye had looked out for her? That was… unexpected.

"No," she said finally, awkwardly. "I, uh, I date women, mostly, but that doesn't mean I don't also like guys, I just, you know, find them obnoxious and abhorrent most of the time."

Rogers laughed. "Can't blame you there. Bucky," Rogers hesitated, biting his lip and looking down, "Bucky, uh, used to say the same thing." Okay, _that_ was new information that Toni was definitely storing for later. 

"Smart guy."

"He—He was so afraid, back then," Rogers said quietly. "Of u—of getting caught. Made me promise to never tell, ever, but I suppose he won't mind now. I wish he'd been able to see the world today. It's… I know it's not perfect, I'm not naïve, but Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes is a high ranking officer with a husband, and that means, that means a lot, to me."

"How is Conner?" Toni asked, instead of trying to process that entire well of information

"Lieutenant Rhodes husband? I uh, haven't met him," Rogers said. 

"Probably for the best, he'd spend the entire time silently comparing himself to you and then wondering about his inadequacies. I'm pretty sure that's why he hates me, because I'm so clearly amazing."

Rogers raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure," he said dryly.

"Well, obviously," Toni said, grabbing for a mostly cold coffee on the counter. "Sorry, do you want a drink? JARVIS, get Steve a drink. No, Butterfingers, not—"

***

It was the third annual Pan-Global Engineering Convention, and Toni was pretty much required to go, much to her chagrin.

At least she could take Benicia with her as her date, because Beni hadn't gotten an invite. Beni was a great engineer, and a semi-decent friend, and, most importantly, her boss was a sexist douchebag. So Toni didn't mind that Beni was using Toni's influence to get back at her company and get ahead, because the reality of their world was the women engineers were far and few between, and Toni had a lot of influence. If she abused that influence to help fellow engineers say 'fuck you' to the patriarchal bullshit of science, then, well, it wasn't _really_ an abuse of power, was it?

After the first half hour, Beni was chatting up the head of R&D at Oscorp, and Toni was by herself, at an event with an open bar, and she couldn't drink. Dammit.

She'd actually managed to avoid social functions since starting her recovery, so this was new and awful territory. Five people offered her a drink, and she accepted the sixth, so at least she'd be holding something. She poured it in a potted plant when she had the chance, and then spent the rest of the night pretending to sip martinis and acting progressively drunker.

She sat through the usual self-congratulatory drivel, accepted an award for her work in global energy conservation, and then pretended to stumble back to the limo, where she sighed grumpily at Happy.

"What about your date?" Happy asked, and Toni laughed.

"Trust me, she's good," Toni said. Beni had winked at her an hour earlier, eyeing up that same guy she'd been impressing with her engineering savvy earlier that night. Toni supposed she was just trying to seal the deal, so to speak.

It was a long drive back, and Toni was exhausted. She wondered if she'd ever found those sorts of parties fun, drunk. She didn't think she had.

When she arrived home, she just wanted to go downstairs and tinker with the armour for a couple of hours, expand her control of Extremis, but she ran into Steve instead, standing in the garage with his arms crossed.

She raised an eyebrow. "Can I help you, Cap?"

"I thought you were getting sober," he said. She stared in surprise; how the _hell_ did he know that?

"Uh," she said. "Yes?"

"So why did JARVIS tell me that you were on the television getting publicly drunk?"

Toni flushed in anger, crossing her own arms. "Okay, firstly, you have no right to judge my own choices or tell me how to live my life. I don't have to explain anything to you, Rogers. You're my team leader, not my nanny. Or my father."

"I'm worried—"

"Well, stop worrying," she snapped. "Do I sound drunk to you? Why don't you step closer and take a big goddamn whiff, and while you're at it, break out the breathalysers, I'm sure JARVIS has some stashed around here." She waved an arm. "Take a good long look, _Captain_ , so you can stop worrying about team unity or whatever the hell, because I'm perfectly sober."

Steve stared at her, clearly confused. "But there were pictures—"

"I was faking it, Stars and Stripes. It's not a hard concept."

"...Why would you do that?"

"People expect certain things from me," Toni said with a shrug. "I learned a _long_ time ago it's better to just give it to them." Steve looked pained by this statement, and Toni hunched her shoulders slightly.

"But you're trying to be better," Steve said. "You're… you're a good person, Toni, and it's your own life." Toni snorted at that.

"No, it's really not. And that's okay, Steve, really, it's. It's okay."

" _Toni_ ," Steve said, and he looked so dismayed and disappointed that Toni had to look away. It wasn't as if she was surprised by this turn of events, it was just. She still had that gut-wrenching knowledge of not being good enough, not ever being good enough, and she couldn't believe that this was still happening to her, after all these years. You think she'd get used to not being good enough.

"Excuse me, I have something very important I need to work on that is far away from the garage," Toni said, quickly walking past him.

"Toni, I didn't mean to—"

"Talk to you later, Steve, nice chat."

***

Toni was working on her next armour upgrade, projections and predictions up and running, when Steve walked into her workshop again. This was becoming a habit, and she didn't know how she felt about that.

"Rogers," she said, standing up. "What are you doing in my lab?"

"I shouldn't have said that, earlier," Steve said. "I. I overstepped my boundaries."

"Yeah, you really stick your foot in your mouth, a lot," Toni said. Steve gave her an unimpressed look, and she raised an eyebrow, shrugging.

"Look, Cap, you're a good guy. I like you. You just… you haven't learned that I'm a lost cause, or that I'm queen fuck up, and you can't expect me to be someone I'm not. Like my dad."

"I don't expect you to be your dad," Steve said.

Toni snorted. "Everyone expects me to be my dad, in their own way. And you were his friend, so. I get that I'm more a… shadow, to you, than a person. But you can't expect me to be okay with that, all the time."

"Toni, I don't think you're Howard, you and Howard are very different people."

"As I'm constantly reminded," Toni muttered.

"But that's a good thing," Steve continued, "because Howard could never be the man in the suit, like you are. Or, well, woman. He could never be the hero. Howard was my friend, and he was a brilliant man, but he was a scientist, through and through. You are so much more than your father, Toni."

Toni froze, vaguely glad she'd turned off the soldering gun as it clattered on the table. No one had ever, in her entire life, said that to her. Not even Jarvis, or Pepper, or Rhodey.

 _Oh_ , she thought, looking at him. And then she looked away, and thought _NO_ to herself very, very firmly. 

That had the potential to be a huge problem. She turned back around quickly.

"Well," she said, a little unsteady, "forgive me if I have difficulty believing you."

"Then I'll keep saying it until you do believe me," Steve promised. "And you are your own person. You shouldn't have to be someone else for… everyone. At least not for us, your team. You're safe here, Toni."

She looked over, surprised, "Yeah, Steve, I… I know. I mean. I knew that."

"Oh," he said. "I. I suppose so."

She rolled her eyes. "Duh," she said, turning back to her work, and tilting her head. Maybe if she rerouted power systems, she could do something about the melting when she controlled it? Circuitry was problematic, but a different alloy might work…

"I'll just, uh, go, then," Steve said.

"Stay as long as you like," she replied absently.

"Okay," he said quietly, but she didn't hear him.

***

When Toni resurfaced from her work, Steve was sitting comfortably on her couch, surrounded by _all_ of her bots this time.

"Well, excuse the fuck out of me," she said, giving them a level glare. "I see how it is."

Dummy wheeled around, and promptly crashed into the trash can. Toni didn't even bother to dignify that with a response.

"Sorry," Steve said, because he was Steve, "they just sort of… congregated."

"Congregated," Toni repeated. "I'm sure. You didn't oil them, did you? They're like the shitty pigeons in Central Park, you know; oil them once, and you'll never get rid of them. Believe me, I've tried."

"No you haven't," Steve said with a smile. 

"I've thought about trying. So what's up? Have you been here the whole time, wooing my incompetent metal assistants? They can't be that fascinating, I own holographic projectors more intelligent than Butterfingers and You put together."

"I was talking to JARVIS," Steve said. "Not that you really noticed. I sketched, uh, that one?" Steve pointed at Dummy, who was still trying to right the trash can, "and I was watching your blue design things. Do you draw on them, or do they come with the schematics already… drawn?" Toni blinked, and then stared back at her work table.

"Uh, I _can_ draw on it," she said. "Vectoring, mostly, and detail work. I have auxiliary and exploded templates for most of the basic mechanical parts and designs."

"What if you need to make parts?"

"Like I said, I can. I just don't need to, usually. I have JARVIS do a lot of the rendering, it cuts down on the boring bits." Toni considered most of the basics of mechanical engineering the 'boring bits', much to the dismay of her professors in college. "Or I work off a tablet," she indicated the one in front of her, "and transfer the data." She paused. "Did any of that make sense?"

"Some of it," Steve said. "I had to take this technical design class at school, 'cause it was the School of Fine _and_ Applied Art. Or it was. They changed the name the year before I enlisted. I mean, we worked with this… special paper, and we drew, uh, this table? A lot? But also some mechanical things," Steve said hastily, "so I've had to do some sort of similar stuff, before."

"Art student," Toni said, staring at him. "Right." 

"Yeah," Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Toni turned around and stared at her hologram blankly. 

"Would you like to, uh, use it?" Toni asked. "JARVIS can bring up a screen up for you, it's not that hard to operate—" 

"No, no, that's fine," Steve said. "I'm okay with just watching. It just… reminded me, I guess. But in a nice way, which doesn't happen very often." Steve's face turned pensive. "It's hard not to miss it, sometimes, hard not to… want to go back. I have trouble understanding the point of all this, sometimes. Everything that's happened. " 

Toni sighed, because she knew he didn't just mean art school. 

"I'm a, fuck. I'm a recovering alcoholic," she said finally. "I mean, apparently you knew that, and I'm not gonna ask, but. You might think you know, but you don't know, you were never… I mean, I know you probably think I'm bad now, but I used to be a lot worse. And tonight, tonight I was six inches away from a glass of wine, a very expensive glass of red wine, from a very good year. Or so I would assume. I held it, and walked around, and acted tipsy and inappropriate and my date went home with a man. So, yeah," she waved her hand uselessly, "sometimes, I don't get the point, either." 

"I'm sorry," Steve said, and Toni wished she couldn't hear all of the _layers_ in that phrase. 

"Yeah," Toni said, "me too." She ran a hand through her hair. "But really, I think figuring out how to use holographic technology is a very important step for you. Maybe next I'll teach you the internet. Or remotes." 

Steve laughed, shaking his head. "Next you'll be telling me that people talk in moving pictures," he said. 

"The future is incredible," Toni said, and Steve's smile softened into something more grateful and understanding. 

"It is," he agreed, and wow, Toni was _so fucked_. 

***

The problem with finding Captain America… attractive, or whatever, beyond the whole _he's Captain America_ thing, was that, well. It felt like a kind of betrayal. A person didn't get much more stereotypical than the muscular, blond-haired blue-eyed white dude. From the _40s_. It was just… Toni liked guys, sure, in a general and vague sense, but she couldn't stand trying to have actual relationships with them. And those were men born in her own generation, the so-called brightest minds of the 21st century.

The last thing Toni wanted was a thing for some old-fashioned blond douchebag with perfect arms. It was horrible and made her stomach twist uncomfortably. She didn't know what made her angrier; the fact that she thought he was hot, or the fact that he was a goddamn genuine sweetheart beyond that whole perfect American Man exterior. 

Toni Stark was not going to be known as the woman who corrupted a national icon. She _refused_. Steve was too good for all of her fuck ups and problems, deserved someone stable and at least 60% less self-centered. And he probably believed in things like true love, and white-picket fences, and _children_.

Toni was, well. Toni Stark, and she might be a billionaire superhero with a literal computer in her brain, but she couldn't give him that.

She wasn't going to ruin him, ruin their team.

She _wasn't_.

***

The superhero community was much larger than anyone had ever suspected, at least in Toni's opinion. Especially in New York. Everyone already knew about the Egocentric Four (who had been conveniently in a parallel universe during Loki's attack, good job on that one, Richards), but there was also some kid with a red spandex jumpsuit, a terrible sense of humour, and spider powers. Not to mention a guy with _a wing suit_ , and another guy with a bad attitude and a propensity to punch things.

There were also mutants, and Toni had always kind of known about Professor Xavier and his school, but meeting his team of mutants was an entirely different experience. Especially after meeting their crazy militant mutant rights opponent, whom Toni was _never going near again_ , because she had _integrated herself with a metal suit_.

Also, Bruce apparently had a cousin, there were more and more different types of aliens, and, most importantly (and dangerously, in Toni's opinion), there were _kids_.

"We have to train them," Toni said. "They're calling themselves the _Young Avengers_ , for heaven's sake. We can't just let them wander around."

"I like them," Clint said. "Especially the girl calling herself Hawkeye. She's my favourite."

"We're all so shocked," Natasha said dryly.

"I'm worried about the boy, Hulkling?" Bruce said. "How did he get his powers?"

"Maybe he's friends with your cousin," Toni said. It was possible she was still a bit bitter that she hadn't known Bruce had a green cousin; Bruce was _her guy_ on the team. They were bros! _Best friends_. They did _science together_. Bruce sighed at her.

"They need to stop altogether," Steve said. "They're too young."

"Well, it's a bit late for that," Toni pointed out.

And so they trained them. Well, kind of. They made them tell their parents, first. _That_ had been fun. God, Toni was never having children, it wasn't even funny.

People kept coming out of the woodwork, though, and Toni couldn't keep track of them all. There were more kids, ones even Steve couldn't talk sense into, and she knew it pained him, and worried him, but it honestly wasn't his responsibility.

Superheros were everywhere, and they were keeping people safe. The Avengers grew, and Ant Man joined the roster, much to Toni's protest that they already _had_ two scientists, they didn't need another. Toni wondered out loud, and pointedly, if they could just have Wasp, because Jan was awesome, but apparently they were a package deal. 

At least neither of them actually wanted to live in the Tower, even if they were always there anyway.

So life continued, weirder and slightly more bizarre with each passing day. The Avengers fought the monsters, and the crazy scientists, and the bloodthirsty aliens. And Toni continued to dream. Sometimes her dreams were nightmares, drenched in blood and sweat and heat and too much water, but sometimes they weren't. Sometimes she dreamed of Steve, and those nights were, occasionally, scarier than all the rest.

She woke up suddenly, vaguely aware of a dream where Steve had kissed her and then died, died in a cave from multiple gunshot wounds while she burned inside of a tin can.

She shuddered, momentarily curling into a ball before getting up and padding towards the kitchen to grab her coffee.

She ran into Steve along the way.

"Oh," he said, ducking down to smile sheepishly. "Sorry, I didn't see you." For a moment, Toni was overwhelmed by relief and the firm knowledge that _Steve was okay_. She blinked at him for a second, probably looking like an idiot, before she processed what he'd said.

"Steven. I glow in the dark."

"I know, I know."

"If you're gonna make a joke about how you didn't see me because I'm so small, now's the time," she said. "And then I'll call the armour to me and punch you in the face."

"You shouldn't abuse your powers just because you have a Napoleon complex."

"Are you kidding me with this?" Toni said, gasping in mock-hurt. "You're being _mean_ , you're _hurtful_ , do the American people know that? What would your fans say? Who's been such a terrible influence on you, Cap?"

"I could make a couple guesses," Steve said, grinning.

"Ah, making me the villain, I see," Toni said. "How sneaky of you, Captain."

"You're not a villain, Toni," Steve said, stepping towards her, brushing a hand down her bare arm. "You're just incredibly overwhelming sometimes. And infuriating, other times."

"You know, I liked you better when you blushed within ten feet of me," Toni said. "Or when you postured around and hated me."

"No you didn't," Steve whispered, leaning in and kissing her.

Instead of pushing Steve away, instead of the hundreds of reasons and ways she'd come up with to say _No_ , Toni closed her eyes and kissed him back, because at the moment all she could remember was blood and heat and _you're going to be okay, I'm going to make you okay, please get up and open your eyes_.

"You good?" Steve asked when she buried her head in his neck, taking a shuddering breath. "Toni?"

"Yeah," she replied, slightly muffled. "Just a bad dream, is all."

He stroked a hand down her back, and Toni felt awful.

 _I'm sorry_ , she apologised to no one, to everyone, not pulling away.

***

It was Team Bonding night, after another mission (against Doctor Doom, this time, because apparently Reed had decided to fuck off to parts unknown, _again_ ). Steve was still being debriefed, and the rest of them were lounging around the rec room. (Clint was campaigning to rename it the family room, which Toni was absolutely against it. She did not need Steve thinking he was allowed to get all paternal on everyone, that was a level of creepy she refused to support.)

"Iron Lady," Thor said carefully, from where he was sitting cross-legged on the ground, "are you and the good Captain still at odds? I wish to clear the air of misunderstandings, so that we may become closer."

Toni cleared her throat, shifting uncomfortably on the couch next to Bruce.

"Yeah, you guys are always getting at each other's throats," Clint said, perched on the arm of Natasha's chair and grinning knowingly. Toni glared at him.

"Maybe they reconciled their differences," Natasha said, sounding bored, looking at her nails and then showing them to Clint. Toni hated them both.

"Toni probably just doesn't like the fact that he's more popular than she is," Pym said with a smirk. "Or that he's in charge." Jan giggled.

"Look," Toni said, slightly defensively. "It's not that I don't like Steve, or that I didn't like him. It's just… I didn't—I still don't—put much stock in this country. I mean, I used to manufacture the weapons, I practically fund their wars; America is one fucked up place. I really do not believe in America, much. But," Toni sighed, pausing. "I believe in Cap—in Steve Rogers. He fights for the people, not for the country. And that's what we're all here for. That's what matters." And Toni didn't deserve him, but she wasn't telling them that in a million years.

"Amen, sister," Clint said, and Bruce chuckled.

Natasha rolled her eyes, and Toni pointed a finger at her. "And no one cares about your Soviet opinion, Romanoff."

"I work for SHIELD," Natasha said mildly. "Not EuroForce."

"Yeah, 'cause SHIELD is such a democratic paragon of American ideals," Toni pointed out. Natasha just smiled.

"So are you going to tell the good Captain about your newfound faith and trust?" Bruce asked.

"Oh, no way in hell," Toni said. "And if any of you tell him, I will deny it for the rest of my life, and ruin you so thoroughly you won't even be able to hear the words 'stock portfolio' again without flinching."

"Toni has a cruuush," Clint sing-songed. Toni made a mental note to make Clint's next set of arrows blow up in his face.

"I'm gonna crush _you_ , Barton," Toni said. "I'll confiscate all your bows and donate them to the local archery range, and then let small children use you for target practice.

"Toni, you realise we are not your robots, correct? We are not intimidated by empty and strangely specific threats."

"Natasha, you are contributing nothing of interest to this conversation," Toni said.

"What conversation?" Steve said, entering the rec room, and Toni sighed as, of course, the entire team told him that Toni thought he was awesome. Whatever. She needed new friends.

If Steve looked at her, grinning in a soft and revealing way, and Toni's mouth tingled slightly at the thought of kissing him again, well. No one else had to know.

***

"Toni," Steve flagged her down the next day as she was walking to her workshop. She needed to talk to Pepper about the newest tech. "There's a lot of paperwork Fury wants us to get done."

"Oh, cool," Toni said. "Pencil me in for the first of never. Or, better yet, get Hank to do it."

"What's your deal with Hank?" Steve asked.

"He's an asshole," Toni said. "There's only room for one asshole on this team, and that's me. I don't like him stealing my turf."

"You're not an asshole," Steve said automatically, and Toni rolled her eyes at him. "Look, Toni…" he started, sounding hesitant, "would you, um." He wasn't looking at her. "Would you like to go see a movie, with me?"

Toni stopped walking. "What?"

"Um," Steve said. "I would really like to go out, on a date, a proper one, eat dinner—"

"I get the concept, here, Steve," she said. "I just. What?"

Steve ran a hand through his hair. "I thought we were… Could we—"

Toni kissed him. She dropped her notebook, her pencils; she pushed him against the wall, she didn't _care_ , anything to keep him from finishing that sentence, to keep her from having to answer, and, shit, he was, like, probably genuinely a virgin, even though she'd heard a rumour about him and Sharon, and she should probably pull away, now.

But when Toni yanked herself back, breathing hard, Steve's hands came up to cup her face. "Okay," he said. "Is that a yes?"

"…Shit," she said. But then Steve leaned towards her, this time, and he kissed her cheek, her neck, before kissing her mouth, and, oh, she had to send a big thank you to the person who had taught Steve Rogers how to kiss. Even if the guilt was overwhelming, the need to explain, to let him down gently. She opened her mouth, ready to do all of that—but he just kissed her instead, cutting her off.

"You make me so angry sometimes," Steve said after they broke apart again, "and I don't understand what you do to me, and you scare me, when you say things about yourself. But I can't stop thinking about you, and it's ridiculous but I just—"

"Shush," Toni said, and it came out way too gentle. "I…" and here's the time, here's where she explained why this couldn't work, why it would never work. Where Toni explained that she was an awful, truly horrendous girlfriend. She needed to do that, for both their sakes.

It'd be the noble thing to do.

"Come with me," she said. This was an awful idea, a truly horrific one, it was selfish and mean and _terrible_ , but honestly, the idea of actually dating Steve Rogers was worse. Their team would self-destruct, and it wasn't worth some weird, sick idea of the happiness she thought it would bring her.

"Really?" he asked, and he sounded so excited. It was awful.

"Yeah. Follow me." She led him back to her room. He laughed, but he still followed her inside. Toni felt sick with guilt, with the idea of fucking him over deliberately, of leading him on. She would absolutely ruin him, and he would hate her in the morning.

That was the point.

She smiled her absolute dirtiest smile, and shut the door behind them.

***

The next day, Toni woke up to the news that six hundred people were dead, and it was those idiots on the New Warriors' fault.

"Sixty of them were children," Toni said, staring at the screen where JARVIS had stuck the newsreel. On another screen, there was rough footage taken from the scene, scraps from their ridiculous reality show that had been salvaged and played back.

The one about how they'd taken on enemies so far out of their league, solely for better ratings, instead of calling The Avengers in, was getting massive amounts of plays on the mainstream media.

"It's not your fault, Toni," Steve said, because he'd learned fast that Toni internalised that shit, and because he was still there. Toni wondered if maybe JARVIS was giving him tips, because Toni lived in a hellish world where her own computer had opinions on the people she fucked. Had a thing for. Whatever.

She also lived in a hellish world where sixty children were dead because a superhero team had fucked up, so she didn't have time to dwell. Or politely kick Steve out of her bed.

"Come on. Suit up. We have survivors to rescue."

Steve nodded, and comm'd the team.

***

The media and public shitstorm was approximately what Toni had expected. A grieving mother attacked Toni, and she made a valid point.

 _People like you advocate for people like them_ , she'd said. _You think you're better than us, you're so special, and my son is dead because of it._

It's not your fault, Steve had said.

Yes, of course, except for all the parts that were.

***

There were 26 superheroes in this room, and Toni wished this happened in times that _weren't_ during a national crises, because honestly, the amount of jokes she could make right now, and most of them aimed at Hank. Toni was always an advocate for making fun of Pym, though she was a fan of McCoy.

(See? Look at that.)

Instead, they were all discussing the government's Super Cops plan.

Toni wished people would see the benefits, would realise the importance of proper training. She wished they could've been there, in that boardroom, but, well, honestly? She was kind of glad that Luke had missed that round of bowing and scraping and talking Congress down to a rational level. Luke Cage would really not have helped her case in the whole 'all superheroes should be arrested and thrown in jail' debate.

But honestly, in the grand scheme of things? On her team, most people knew who Steve and Thor were already, and obviously everyone had known about her since she'd, uh, told everyone. They were all proof that unmasking didn't have to go badly. And what other solution was there? Kids couldn't fucking walk around and take on guys who beat up Mar-Vell and Spider-Man on a regular basis.

Toni had helped start this, and she was going to help stop it. (Part of her said _remember when they tried to take away your suit?_ , but Toni was ignoring that part.)

Steve was with SHIELD, hopefully finding some sort of compromise, or possibly just getting orders to nut up and shut up. Hill was kind of an asshole like that; Toni was never telling him this, but she occasionally missed Fury. Toni wished Steve would hurry it up and get back, because Toni's diplomacy skills were not actually the best, and she was pretty sure the only reason Luke Cage wasn't beating her up was because he was too busy glaring at Nighthawk.

The debate raged around her, but at least no fights had broken out. Most people were even arguing at a normal volume, though some shouts of _the public good!_ and _my family's safety!_ were audible through the general din.

But she was sure eventually people would realise it was either become paid government employees or hang up the cowls, and Toni, for one, was definitely not ready to give up the suit. She couldn't. It was a part of her, now.

 _There is the next mission, and nothing else_ , she'd told Pepper once, and though that wasn't quite true anymore, Toni literally could not go back to being who she was before the suit. And she wouldn't if she could.

She couldn't give away her freedom, and power, and the ability to save other people instead of destroy them. She was desperate for it. Maybe she was like Natasha, who had once shrugged and told her that there was red in her ledger. Or maybe she just couldn't stand to be helpless in a sea of villainy that came in more types than people in masks with weapons.

Maybe it was both, and more.

Either way, she was willing to get paid for this shit, even if it meant reporting to more than just the Captain (she could never think of him as Steve when he was her boss, and wow, she was suddenly way more sympathetic to Pepper's pain); it's not like she didn't technically do that already.

So she was cautiously optimistic, thinking perhaps the worst of it was over, right up until Hill called her.

"Iron Woman," she said, "we have a problem."

"What is it, Hill?" Toni asked, dreading the answer. Steve was supposed to be there, and so if she also needed to talk to Toni, that meant some sort of additional national disaster of some kind, a disaster that Steve couldn't tell her himself.

"Captain America has become hostile. He's hijacked a plane, and we lost his tracking signal."

Ah. That. That would explain it.

Well, there went the idea that this couldn't get any worse.

***

Toni couldn't even articulate how angry she was at Steve.

Instead, she volunteered to be part of the search team that brought him in.

Wisely, no one talked to her about it.

(Except JARVIS, until she threatened to disable him.)

***

She could do without being on the same side as _Hank Pym_ , though.

He smirked at her too often, snidely making remarks about the intelligence of "the other side", and _shouted_ at Jan.

Who the fuck shouted at Jan?

Toni started to make more plans, started to add to her equations. Her brain was working overtime, Extremis rapidly compensating for everything. She hid in it, in the programming and the logic.

It made the pain hurt less. It helped her think more clearly, helped her realise why she needed to do this.

***

"We're weeding out the kids, the amateurs, and the sociopaths," Toni told Bruce later, when he bitterly expressed the opinion that Ross, for one, was going to be _delighted_ with the Hulk being on government payroll. "This can only be a good thing, in the end."

"Yeah, okay, Toni," Bruce said carefully. "So where does that put the Captain?"

It just wasn't fair that she couldn't seriously threaten Bruce without harm to the structural integrity of her Tower.

***

"After this Registration Act becomes legalised, everyone who doesn't comply is going to jail, Toni," Pepper said.

"I know, Pep," Toni said. "I fucking know, alright?"

Toni," Pepper said, and her voice was blank, "they're going to send their dogs after Steve, and his team, like he's a criminal."

"Pepper," Toni said, "I said I know."

"I know you know, Toni," Pepper said easily. "I just want you to understand why this time, I mean it."

"Mean what?"

"This is it, Toni."

Toni froze, putting down the welder she'd been using, snapping up her visor.

"Pepper," she said.

"I can't, Toni," she said softly. "You think I don't know what all this is? Bruce explained it to me." She pointed at Toni's calculations, where she'd poured out her heart in chalk, outraged, Richards in her ear complimenting her, Pym egging her on.

"It's a solution," Toni said.

"It's madness, and it's awful, and I won't be a part of it." She turned around, walking out steadily, slowly.

Toni wanted to call her back, but she couldn't speak past her shock.

At the door, Pepper paused and turned around. "I'm sorry. Maybe you'll—well. Maybe you'll realise eventually." She hesitated, and then she sighed, opening the door with the lockcode she still knew, she always knew, because Toni would never deny Pepper Potts anything, not even this. "Goodbye, Toni."

Pepper left.

The clock chimed midnight.

***

Everything fell apart fast.

Bruce left. Susan left. Peter's aunt almost died. Carol was an idiot, that kid with her was almost killed, and people started to be torn from their families for stupid reasons.

Even Toni could see they were stupid. Toni was in charge, but nothing was happening like it was supposed to. Steve wasn't listening. No one was _listening_ , no one understood.

She was trying to help. This was the right thing to do.

It was.

It _was_.

***

"Toni."

"I'm busy, Rhodey," Toni said, not looking up from her computer. Rhodey had entered the Tower 22 minutes ago. He'd lingered at the door to her workshop for ten of them. 

She didn't need to hear this. It was irrelevant. It was _interrupting_ , she needed to _focus_ , because it wasn't every day that she built a transdimensional prison to house all of her former friends.

"I'm sure you are," he said. He was quiet for a moment, and Toni started to work through her theory to stabilise the wormhole. "You know, I believe in my country."

"I know, Rhodey," she said, not looking up. "You're a good man."

"Not really," he said. "I'm a good soldier, though."

"Better than some people," Toni agreed, and Rhodey sighed. 

"This isn't you," he whispered, and Toni closed her eyes.

"I'm kind of sick and tired of people telling me how _I'm_ like, and that _I'm_ in the wrong," she snapped. "I am helping my country. I am _doing the right thing_. I'm doing the thing that needs to be done, to prevent more tragedy, more disaster. We're trying to save the world, but we're just destroying it, and there needs to be _rules_ —"

"Yes, there do," Rhodey said. "I'm on your side, Toni."

"Are you?" she wheeled around, looking at him for the first time. "Are you, Rhodes? Because I'm not feeling it, I'm not feeling the support here. You're supposed to be my best friend, but then again," she smirked cruelly, and she _knew_ it was cruel, knew it was uncalled for, "you've always had conflicted priorities."

Rhodey sucked in a breath, wincing. "Yeah," he said, staring at her. "I suppose I do." 

She wheeled back around. 

"Come find me when you're ready to do what needs to be done."

 _Go_ , she thought. _Go, go, go, go, go._

_Please don't come back._

***

Pym was dangerous. Toni couldn't work with him, he threw her off, made Jan afraid, and Toni couldn't work with that either. Too many variables. Too many loose ends. Toni needed to make a choice.

Hank made it for her, hitting Jan, right out in the open, during one of their fights, right where Toni could fucking _see_.

Toni punched him, right in the middle of the lab, and Jan grabbed her arm.

"Don't," Jan pleaded. "He didn't mean it."

"What the _fuck_ ," Toni snarled. "You're going to make excuses for him? You're going to let him treat you like that? You're better than that. You're better than him. You don't need him, and just because you love him that doesn't mean shit. It doesn't mean _shit_. You need to be stronger than this."

Jan covered her mouth with a hand.

"I," she said, gasping. "No, you don't understand."

"Oh, I understand," Toni snapped, and her head hurt, it was numb and roaring all at once and the equations were loose, she was free, and she needed to get back, she needed to lock everything back up tight. "Trust me."

Jan shrunk, flying out of the room.

Hank was still unconscious, and she called the police, giving them her report without looking up as they took him away.

She was alone, now. Just her and Mr. Fantastic, over in his ivory skyscraper.

For the first time in her life, Toni felt distantly sorry for Reed Richards.

And then she buried it, like she'd buried everything else.

***

The final battle was in the middle of New York City. Of course it was.

It was chaos.

This wasn't what Toni wanted.

This didn't compute.

Steve—Captain America—had his hands around Toni's neck. She couldn't breathe. She closed her eyes, the mask already torn away. Captain America could see her. She wished he couldn't. She wished that should could have buried it deeper, but there was nowhere left to go, nowhere left to hide.

 _Do it_ , she thought.

And then, of course, the metal of her suit lifted away from her throat, creaking, and she could breathe. She opened her eyes, and Captain America—Steve—was staring back. Horrified. His own team restraining him.

"What the hell are we doing," he whispered, looking at her, and looking around them.

She didn't know.

***

He was under arrest. He was an enemy of the state. He'd _tried to kill her_. It was his court case, and he was rightly being brought in as a fugitive.

He never even made it to the steps.

Toni was there, she saw it, and she flew, screaming, her repulsors blasting blindly at where the shot had come from. She half-remembered a dream, desperately wished this was just another one, a horrible dream, and she could taste the sand and water in her mouth as she thought _NO NO NONONONONONONONO_. But nothing helped. By the time she got to the steps of the courthouse, there was blood pooling out, seeping from the body.

Steve's body.

Steve was dead.

And it was her fault.

 _It wasn't worth this_ , she thought, and she closed her eyes as she collapsed to her knees. _He didn't deserve this_.

 _You have everything and nothing_ , a man in a cave had once told her.

He'd been right.

***

Toni was made Director of SHIELD, but she didn't deserve it, and the whispers had already started about a woman at the helm. Then the invasion happened, and then the fucking virus happened, and everyone turned on her, and Norman was there, and Toni had to go, had to get out _now_. Even as she ran, even as she grabbed the armour and flew, she turned and asked Hill—Maria, not Hill, not anymore—if she wanted to come with.

Maria had smiled, tilting her head and finally, she held out her hand. That was the thing about being a woman in their line of work. In the end, all they had was each other. Jobless or not, traitors or not, failures or not. Toni grabbed her, pulled her up, and flew off, her mind racing.

Toni had fucked up, had fucked up in a way that was beyond comprehension, beyond repair. She'd tried to help, she'd tried to salvage even a bit of the situation, but she had to face the facts, and the facts were this: the Registration had failed, superheroes had fought each other and died, and then an alien race had come down from the heavens, disguised themselves as her friends, and systematically destroyed all of her tech and everything associated with it.

Her entire life's work. What had always kept her sane when everything else in her life was shit. It was gone, she was out of a job, everyone hated her, _Norman Osborn_ was in charge of SHIELD (called HAMMER, now, because not even that could stay) and Steve was dead.

Toni's armour faltered, but she flew on, determined. Her thoughts were like that now, jumbled, grim, realistic, and always circling around that screaming hole of _nothing_ , that drop in her stomach that made her want to throw up, every time. _Deaddeaddeaddeaddead._

She was a hollow tin soldier, and she was running on empty. The joints were rusting shut, Dorothy, but there was no more oil left in the can.

At this point, there was only one more thing she was good for.

Toni's mind was a computer, in the most literal sense. Toni's mind had always been _like_ a computer, before Extremis, but it really, genuinely was one, now. Technically, she could integrate JARVIS into her brain, but JARVIS hadn't wanted to, had felt uncomfortable with the intimacy. Regardless, Toni's mind was a computer, with files and sensitive information and blueprints beyond her fever-dream creations. Concrete data on a portable hard drive.

Norman Osborn wanted the Registry, and the Registry needed to be moved; there was no time to delete it, now. So she uploaded them to the safest place she knew, the only external drive she could fully trust.

She'd left one name in, a final fuck you.

She could imagine Osborn's face when he rifled through the network, everyone's name turning up a blank search, and then:

_IRON WOMAN: ANTONIA STARK_

She grinned, and she flew.

***

She needed to delete the register, all the names and people and places, all the ages and powers she knew. Hundreds of files of classified information—of all types, because, well, she hadn't been Director of SHIELD for nothing. She held the goddamn ring, and now it was time to take it to Mordor.

JARVIS was talking to her, fast and furious, as she strapped herself in. Maria grabbed her arm, screamed at her, brandishing her gun.

Toni sighed.

"Maria," she said quietly, "I've fucked up. I've fucked up so badly—and in the worst kind of ways. And the way I fucked up the most was thinking that I could do this; that I was superhero material. My very life is…" she trailed off, and, for the second time that day, for the thousandth time that month, she thought of Steve. "…my very existence is dangerous."

"You're a goddamn fool, as usual."

She knew that voice. Toni looked up, and smiled. She wasn't gonna cry, not now, not at the end of it all.

"Hey, Rhodey," she said softly.

"Hey, Toni," he replied. He looked tired, and sad, and worried, bags under his eyes. He gave her a resigned look, and she remembered their last conversation. Conflicted loyalties. 

"Rhodey," she said. "Wanna help me save the world one last time?" She smiled at him, lolling her head to the side in the chair. "I need some help here. I need someone to push the button."

"Don't do it, Lieutenant Colonel," Maria snapped. "She's not in her right mind, she's suicidal—"

"All due respect, Ma'am?" Rhodey said. "You're no longer my commanding officer."

Rhodey looked at Toni, and sighed. "Always knew you'd make me pull the plug someday."

"You promised," she whispered, holding out her hand. "No coming back unless you do what needs to be done."

"Oh, Toni," he said. "I really wish I hadn't."

"I trust you," she said suddenly. "And I respect you. I trust you the most out of anyone."

He looked at her for a long moment.

"Okay," he said finally. "Alright."

"I needed two," Toni said quietly, still looking at Rhodey, even as Maria seethed in the background. "I needed two, and Pepper wouldn't. She's not coming back, and she shouldn't. I'm glad it's you though."

"Who would you have gotten, if it hadn't been me?" Rhodey asked.

"JARVIS," Toni said, even as JARVIS denied it vehemently. "I'd have forced him. But now I don't have to."

"No," Rhodey said. "You're just forcing me."

"I'm glad you're here," she whispered, and he closed his eyes, before inputting his codes.

She gasped, because she was in _pain_ , and that wasn't fair, because brains weren't supposed to hurt, there were no pain receptors in the brain, and yet she could feel it, could feel things _disappear_ , could feel the emptiness consuming her.

It felt right, and so horribly, horribly wrong.

She gritted her teeth into a grim smile, and hoped she wasn't bleeding.

Rhodey kissed her forehead, which made Toni smile despite everything. She'd always known she could get Rhodey to kiss her someday.

She didn't even feel bad about manipulating Maria into deleting the rest of her brain. 

She was still there of course, because her brain was a computer, but her brain was also a brain. Her memories were still there, and this part, this was going to be the hard part. She almost wished she could just take the easy way out, a gun to the temple, a little skip off the roof without the suit. It'd be quicker, less painful, and she wouldn't have to see Steve's face again, in perfect detail because her brain was so _perfect_ now, had photographic memory, and she wouldn't have to watch the sunlight on his skin and smile and lean down to kiss him before there was blood everywhere, and it was her fault—

Toni woke up, and picked herself up once again, and continued to run.

She ran until she bled, until she couldn't move, until every last bit of the registry was gone.

Norman found her first, and of course he did.

The last thing she thought was _finally_.

***

Slowly, she opens her eyes, and carefully, agonisingly, she breathed.

 _Not dead after all_ , she thought. Damn.

Her brain felt funny. Muted. Silent. Like her thoughts were... disconnected. She didn't understand

Her body felt… odd. Numb, but also _weak_ , in a way she wasn't expecting. She hurt, but it wasn't the sort of pain she'd expected after getting beaten unconscious.

She shifted slightly, and that's when she noticed someone was holding her hand loosely.

Not just someone, though.

"Steve?" she asked, but it came out as a croak, and she started to cough weakly. Steve, who had been asleep, slumped over in the chair next to her bed, startled. He let go of her hand, and she tried to reach out, but she couldn't move her arm.

"Toni," he said. "Toni, you're awake. Here, here, water." He carefully tipped the cup toward her, which still managed to get water everywhere. She tried not to be super embarrassed by that, but wasn't quite successful.

"You're alive," she finally managed to say. "What the fuck."

That startled a laugh out of him, which she couldn't even begin to handle.

"Yeah," he said. "It was—" Before he could continue, doctors streamed into the room, all business, crowding in, checking her pulse, shining lights into her eyes. They shooed Steve out.

It turned out she'd been in a coma for six months.

And the arc reactor wasn't just keeping shrapnel out of her heart anymore.

"It's keeping me breathing," she repeated.

"And regulating your heartbeat, as well as quite possibly keeping you blinking, which we may have to run more tests on, but your pupils are dilating normally and you've blinked at a normal rate since we've arrived."

She blinked again, just to flip him off, since she still couldn't move her arms very well. He smiled.

"Well," she said. "Fuck. How did you manage that?" She didn't add 'because you're all hacks and I'm the only one who can properly engineer my arc reactor', if only because Steve liked to give lectures on being polite to people who stitched her up. The automatic response of gut-wrenching pain when she thought of Steve still hit, even if it was now tempered with confusion.

Toni was well-versed in people seeming to be there, but not actually being there.

"You have very good friends, Dr. Stark," the doctor said to her, smiling.

"Yeah," Toni said, smiling bitterly. "I kind of doubt that." The doctor raised an eyebrow.

"Well," he said. "Regardless, Ms. Potts gave us detailed blueprints and diagnostics to your reactor, and Dr. Banner was quite helpful in tempering the metals to work as life support systems."

Huh. Bruce and Pepper had actually helped her, after… everything.

"I'll send them a thank you card," she gritted out. "Hey, any chance I could get like, super, super, extra strength painkillers right about now?"

The doctors denied her request—damn her medical history of substance abuse and dependence—and gave her a much smaller dose than she'd really like. When they were finally done poking at her, and examining her arc reactor in far too great a detail than she was really comfortable with, they left. And Steve cautiously walked back in.

"How do I know you're not a Skrull?" was the first thing she asked him. Steve sighed.

"You don't wake up until you've had at least two cups of coffee. Your favourite band has four letters I can never remember the order of, even though you a bunch of shirts with the logo on it. Once, I caught you welding without a bra on. You named JARVIS after your old butler, which you haven't told me, but Rhodey mentioned it. When you get nervous, you flip your right hand back and forth. You have a robot named Dummy, and another one named Butterfingers. You tell people your favourite movie is _The Godfather_ , but it's really _Blade Runner_. You haven't told me that one either, I just noticed after the third time you made everyone watch it. The day before the New Warriors—"

"Alright," she interrupted him. "I believe you, you're Steve, got it."

"The day before Nitro, and the New Warriors, and the Registration Act," Steve continued anyway, "I asked you out, and you kissed me, and I kissed you back." Toni looked away. "And then we—"

"Stop it, Steve," she said.

"Toni," he said. "I'm—"

"Please leave," she said. "Please, just. Please go."

***

Toni's recovery was slow, but for once, she wasn't annoyed by it. She felt listless and numb and all of her emotions seemed dulled. Extremis had given her an edge of clarity that she never wanted again. It was sickening, when she reviewed everything that had happened.

At least she'd gotten Pym arrested. At least, even through the haze of the drug (and that's what it was, a terrible, terrible drug, even worse than the one she'd given up), she'd understood exactly how fucked up he was.

Jan came to visit her.

"Hey," Toni said quietly. Jan had her arms wrapped around herself, staring at the floor.

"Hi, Toni," Janet said, biting her lip. "Natasha invited me to stay at Avengers Tower because I… well. She invited me to stay."

"Cool," Toni said, smiling slightly. "I mean, it's about time, really, you've always been one of us, might as well make it official and subject you to what Clint calls 'cooking' and what the rest of us call 'toxic waste'."

Jan made a noise, but Toni couldn't really tell what it meant.

"Thank you," Jan said quietly. "I know I… but thank you."

"I said some things," Toni started, but Jan shook her head.

"I needed to hear them."

"Still, I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have said it like that. It wasn't your fault, not any of it. Not the abuse, not the inability to leave. Sometimes, love really fucks with us. And, I mean, I was probably projecting."

Jan gasped. "Steve didn't—"

"No, no," Toni backtracked. "I just, I meant. We were on opposite sides, and I was so angry, and I probably wouldn't have done a lot of the shit I did if I didn't want revenge, you know? I just, I was so angry at all guys, honestly, and it was like this whole stereotypical scorned lover scenario that really makes me an embarrassment to our gender."

"I don't think so," Jan said. "You had a right to be angry."

"Yeah, well," Toni said, staring up at the ceiling. "It's all over now."

"Is it?" Jan asked, surprised. "I thought he came to see you?"

Toni shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't really want to see _him_. Anyway, where are you gonna stay in the Tower?"

Jan hesitated, and then let the subject drop. They spent the rest of the time talking about Jan's room, and all of the Avengers moving back in (Black Panther was taking up residence, apparently, along with Coulson, also returned from the dead, and, most surprisingly, Spider-Man).

"Doesn't that kid, like, hate my guts now?" Toni asked.

"He worships Steve," Jan said. Toni groaned. _Great_.

***

Rhodey visited her, next.

Toni spent the first five minutes pointedly looking out the window, before she sighed. He wasn't leaving.

"How's Conner?" she asked, because she and Rhodey had a routine. And maybe, this time, he'd realise that Conner was where he was _supposed_ to be, not here, not with her. She'd tried to tell him. She'd always tried.

"We're getting divorced," Rhodey said easily, and Toni closed her eyes. Yeah.

"Why?" she asked, because she had to know.

"Irreconcilable differences," Rhodey said.

"Was it me?" she asked, simple, point-blank.

"It wasn't you," Rhodey said. "It was a lot of things, Toni, but it wasn't you."

"Was I one of the things, though?" Toni asked, turning and looking Rhodey straight in the eye.

Rhodey looked straight back. "No, Toni, you weren't."

She closed her eyes again, and breathed. Selfishly, she pretended he wasn't lying to her.

***

Pepper and Happy sent a fruit basket full of chocolate, and a bag of Kopi Luwak.

 _We know_ , the card said, in Happy's cramped handwriting. In smaller, neater print, it also said, _Welcome back, Dr. Stark_.

Toni sent it out to get framed, and then brewed herself some ridiculously expensive coffee that had been digested by a cat.

It tasted awful, and Toni drank all of it anyway.

***

She woke up the morning before she was allowed to leave the Hospital, and Natasha was sitting in the window, staring outside.

"That's creepy," she announced.

"They made me Director of SHIELD," Natasha said, no preamble.

"That's creepier."

"They took him down," Natasha said. "We took him down."

"Okay," Toni said, not quite ready to say _Thank you_.

"You should have brought me with you," Natasha said.

"You would have stopped me."

"Yes."

It was silent for a moment.

"Clint forgives me," she said quietly. "Even though I stayed with you, and he left."

"Are you in love with Clint?" she asked, honestly curious.

"He's all I have," she said, and Toni understood that. She knew what it was like to have that, and to lose it.

"I was so focused on myself, I missed what happened to the rest of us. I ruined everyone, not just myself and Steve."

"I forgive you."

"You might be the only one."

Natasha looked away from the window, straight at Toni. "You'd be surprised."

***

Toni had been hesitant about moving back to the Tower, but she had an entire floor to herself, so she didn't _have_ to see anyone if she didn't want to. As no one really wanted to see her, aside from Natasha, who still came up for their weekly ritual, it worked out perfectly.

She became bored after about .03 seconds of both mobility and nothing whatsoever to do, seeing as she'd voluntarily shut herself off from her lab and her suit, but she wanted to build, she needed to build, and all she could do was rearrange the furniture.

Even in her isolation, she'd run into the other members of the team at various points. Coulson was polite and guarded, as usual, and she honestly didn't know how he was alive, but it seemed to make Clint happy. Which was great, because every time she saw Clint, she was pretty sure he wanted to stick an arrow in her neck.

Spidey was actively avoiding meeting her face-to-face, but she could still hear him on occasion, telling jokes, which was a good sign, even if the jokes in question were more subdued and bitter than they'd been before. 

Thor was still very angry and looked distinctly thundering whenever she got near him, which was probably only fair, considering that whole clone thing and that part where she tried to make Asgard register, but he, like Clint, only looked like they were _thinking_ about murdering her, so she considered it a cautious win.

Bruce had looked at her for a long, long moment when she'd asked him why he helped save her life, before sighing quietly and shaking his head. 

"We all get low sometimes," he said finally. "And we both have our own monsters."

"I think," she said carefully, revising something she'd originally thought, long ago, "mine might be a bit worse."

"Maybe," he said. "But it won't happen again."

"How do you know?"

"Because you don't want it to."

"Does that help you? Control it, I mean. Control him. Is that your secret?"

"Not really. But it helps," Bruce said, unflinchingly honest, and her face twitched in the ghost of a smile.

***

The only person she'd successfully and totally avoided was Steve. Which was why when she turned around, holding a vase that really would look better on the other side of the hall, it fell with a resounding crash.

"Steve," she said, and it was all she could say before her throat closed up, words tumbling around her brain.

 _I thought you were dead_.

_I thought it was my fault._

_I think I'm in love with you._

"Toni," Steve said, and he gave her a lopsided smile. "Sorry about that."

"Sorry about that," Toni repeated. She knew he meant the vase, but she suddenly felt bitter at the idea of _him_ apologising. "For what? Not dying?"

Steve winced, but his face shifted. "Well, that too. For scaring you, for… upsetting you."

Toni snorted. "Upsetting me? _Upsetting me_? Rogers, I spent a year more furious with you than I think I've ever been in my life, and I grew up with my father. I've been betrayed by more people I can count, I've been stolen from, I've lost most of my friends, I've been double-crossed and kidnapped and you left them all behind, and then, then you _died_ , you fucking left me here without you, and you think I was just _scared and upset_?"

Steve froze. "Toni," he said carefully, and Toni rolled her eyes.

"Let's just." She sighed, closing her eyes. "Let's just not, right now, Steve." It was a pitiful and cowardly thing to say, after all that, but she really couldn't deal with him. Now, or ever, probably.

"Okay," Steve agreed, surprisingly. "I heard you saved everyone, and you destroyed the Registry."

Toni took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Who told you that?" she said.

"Sharon."

Toni's eyes flew open. "You talked to Sharon?" she asked.

"She couldn't help it, Toni," Steve said. "And you know it wasn't really her."

"Yeah," Toni said. "Yeah, whatever, sure."

"Toni," Steve said, "she said that you don't remember anything, and that you refuse to talk to her, and that you're recovering but you refuse to leave your room, and people are worried, Toni—"

"I do remember, that's an exaggeration. I mean. I remember most of it. I deleted some memories accidentally, apparently, but not all. I mean, clearly, right? You were fucking there when I woke up. Of course I won't talk to her, she _killed_ you, or I thought she had, whatever, and people are always worried—"

"You erased parts of your _mind_ , you tried to save everyone, you weren't that person anymore, you need to—"

"You were _dead_ ," she yelled, beyond caring, beyond composure. "You were dead, and it was _my fault_ , this entire fucking war was my fault, and Pepper won't even _speak_ to me, not face-to-face, and she's right, everyone's right, and I lost my fucking company, and I don't deserve to be Iron Woman, I never did, and you knew that, when we first met."

"It wasn't your fault," Steve said. "It wasn't, Toni. And I was wrong, when I first met you. You are a hero."

"We were on different sides."

"Are we ever on the same side?" he asked, giving her a small smile. Her breath hitched.

"You were dead," she finally whispered.

"Well, I'm not, anymore," he said. "Toni."

"Shut up, Steve," she said. "Just, shut up, okay."

He reached out, and she flinched back, and he looked so _hurt_. She remembered, in vivid detail, their kiss the day before those kids blew up. The way he'd leaned towards her and said _you make me so angry sometimes_ , the way he cradled her face and said _I don't understand what you do to me_. She remembered their first kiss, where it has been more comfort than romance, where he had been her safe harbor, not something to be terrified of. She remembered her shitty and crumbling resolve to leave him, to say no to his offer of a relationship. She closed her eyes, because she refused to cry in front of Steve fucking Rogers.

"I should've died," she said quietly. "Osborn should've killed me. _You_ should have killed me."

"No, Toni," Steve said, and she could feel his fingers brush against her cheek, but she refused to open her eyes. She didn't want to flinch away again, but she didn't know if she could stand it, if she saw. "I'm so, so sorry."

She laughed, ragged. "I think we've established there's a lot of apology going on right now."

He kissed her, and she kissed back, clutching his face, trailing a hand down his back.

He was real, he was breathing, he was alive.

If she was crying, she would swear Steve to secrecy and then have JARVIS erase the tapes.

***

They ended up in bed, again. They still needed to talk, still had a _long_ way to go, still needed to discuss trust, and loyalty, and there was no apology big enough for either of them, but.

Steve carefully pulled off her shirt, and unclasped her bra, and he was still looking at her face, was still so careful, and Toni had never felt loved unconditionally before, for any reason that didn't involve some sort of obligation. She'd never met anyone who had seen Toni at her worst, and could still look at her like Steve was looking at her now.

"You really need to stop that," Toni said, unbuttoning Steve's shirt and really admiring his chest, because, honestly, that did not get old.

"Stop what?" Steve said.

"Looking at me like… like that," she said.

Steve brushed a hand down her arm. "You are the most amazing, frustrating, confusing, irritating, beautiful, heroic woman I've ever met," he said. "And, trust me, that bar was high to begin with."

"Yeah, you have a type," Toni said. "I've met Peggy, remember?"

"Toni," Steve said, leaning his forehead against hers and smiling, "I'm trying to tell you I love you."

Toni waited for the bottom to drop out of her stomach. It didn't.

"I love you too," she said. "Which is why I hate you, sometimes. I think."

Steve laughed. "I know the feeling."

She kissed him again, and maybe that wasn't how love was supposed to work, but Toni had never really had a working model of love to begin with, and she was too far gone to stop now.

***

There were bombs, and blood, and everything was hot, and then it was freezing, and Toni was falling, falling so far, and she couldn't breathe, she couldn't _breathe_ , and her chest hurt and—

Toni gasped, waking up with a start. She froze, trying to calm her breathing as silently as possible, because she didn't want Steve to wake up.

"Toni?" Steve asked. "Are you okay?" Damn super soldier senses.

Toni opened her mouth to respond dismissively, to tell Steve not to worry and go back to bed, that it had just been a dream, but the question echoed in her head.

_Are you okay?_

She thought of everything, of all the times she'd almost died, of falling through space, of watching Steve get shot. She thought of the people who rightfully hated her, and the people who loved her despite everything.

She thought of her suit, and the possibility of putting it on again. Of deserving to be a hero.

She thought of Steve Rogers, a man too good for her, too good for the world, but still just a man, a person who made mistakes all the same. A man who'd told her he loved her, and she'd believed him.

"Yeah," she said quietly. "I am. Or, I will be. It was just a dream." She remembered the first time they'd kissed, and smiled despite herself.

He sat up, putting an arm around her shoulders. "You want to talk about it?"

"Nah," she said, resting her head in the crook of his neck. Again. For the first time. "I'm good. Let's go back to bed." They rearranging themselves around each other, and Toni heard Steve drift off again, his breathing slowing, deepening, and hitching just slightly.

She felt his presence, solidly existing, alive and real, and she stared out across her open balcony as the first rays of sunlight streamed in through the opposite window.

For a moment, everything was okay. 

And maybe, just maybe, things would get better. And so would she.


End file.
